By Michael Devlin
PEOPLE travelling along the leafy lanes of Erganagh and Castlederg on a dark Monday evening past may have encountered slight traffic congestion. Every roadway leading to and from Spamount Crossroads was passable only at a halting crawl. Yet contrary to understandable initial fears, the recent road re-surfacing had not returned unannounced and rather the disruption was down to local police officers, employed – arguably – on a far more important mission.
One week to the hour since the heinous attempt on the life of an off-duty PSNI officer, colleagues turned out en masse in a bid to dislodge some information from local memories.
Cars were stopped and questions asked and hopes aired and in an effort to refresh recollections, a reconstruction was also staged of the officer's last movements.
An almost identical car sporting the same registration plates travelled along the main Castlederg to Victoria Bridge Road as far as the quiet crossroads.
The dark blue Ford Focus parked on the still scorched patch of road, hazard lights illuminating, tenuous and yet chillingly allusive to the moment the bomb detonated under a seat carrying a unsuspecting life.
"My appeal is to local people who may have noticed suspicious activity," explained Detective Inspector Ian Magee yards from where the young officer dragged himself in agony from a vehicle engulfed in flames.
He continued, "The officer's car was not used between 6pm on Saturday May 10 and 9pm on Monday May 12.
"We believe that the device was placed under it sometime in this period and I am asking: Did anyone see strangers, strange cars or suspicious activity in the area in this period?
"If you did, we want to hear from you. Any information, no matter how insignificant it might appear, could be useful.
recovery
"Fortunately, the injured officer is making a good recovery. He has undergone operations, including skin grafts, and is in good spirits."
"Unfortunately, however, without evidence, the police are effectively powerless to stop the culprits carrying out another such attack on another young officer. And that's where you come in.
"In November of last year, the Real IRA shot two officers in Derry and Dungannon, and in February police mounted a huge security operation across the North because of fears that dissidents were planning another shooting or bombing. Obviously, police intelligence was correct, but such is the nature of booby trap bombs, prevention is wholly preferable than the cure.
cowardly
The DI added, "Just like everyone else in this community, the PSNI understands that there is someone out there who knows who is responsible for these cowardly attacks on innocent people – innocents who are, ironically, just trying to make a society better.
"Even if apprehended, there would be little point in asking those who carried out the bombing exactly why they did what they did; attempted murder tells its own story.
Certainly, this society would be better off without murderers living unperturbed and unpunished among us, flailing, as they are, under a tattered banner of nothingness.
To say that these people even have a cause is to give them credence they hardly deserve.
"For too long now have psychotics and poisonous simpletons been living under a pretence of a crusade. If it wasn't sectarianism, it would surely be something else.
"When the media glare finally shifts and the bursts of condemnation slowly dissipate, the sound of a bomb exploding on the underside of a car, will, for the officer involved and his family, take far, far longer to echo away and die," added DI Ian Magee.
The numbers to call are the incident room at Castlederg police station, 0845 600 8000, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800555 111.
