BY ADRIAN MULLAN

a.mullan@ulsterherald.com

THERE was the hint of the taste of the bad old days on Tuesday when a bomb warning was called into Omagh Courthouse.

The Magistrates and Crown Courts were in session when the call came in at 12.45pm. Court staff advised the judge and the Magistrate that the warning had come through and both ordered that their courts be evacuated.

Remand prisoners held in the cell were led back to the prison van in handcuffs as staff and members of the public cleared out of the building as warning alarms sounded.

Police moved in to search the courthouse and the nearby areas and, after approximately one hour, the alert was declared a hoax.

Over a number of years following the bombing of Omagh in August 1998, there were periodic hoax bomb warnings phoned through to police. However, because they came in the wake of the Real IRA's slaughter which claimed 31 lives and maimed hundreds of others, those warnings were taken particularly seriously. Subsequently, one man was prosecuted for making the hoax calls and was sentenced to a period of imprisonment.

Police are currently investigating this latest hoax.

It is understood that in this latest hoax, no code name was given by the caller.