"We Were Just Lambs to the Slaughter"

The Police Ombudsman is to be asked to review the police investigation into the Teebane massacre by one of its survivors.
Robert O'Neill has never worked since the IRA blasted his work van on January 17, 1992. The Co Antrim man believes the police and his former employers have been "dishonest in their actions" before and after the atrocity.
Mr O'Neill claims he started asking questions about security before the bomb after a "gut feeling" the security forces were not aware of their movements. He alleges his then employers - Karl Construction - told him and others they were being given security force protection when they were not.
He also claims on January 7, he and a fellow worker went to the police station in Omagh to inquire about their security arrangements. "The policeman in Omagh said he had no information from Karl Construction about us. We checked with Castlederg UDR camp and the position was the same. "The policeman asked us how long we had been using the Cookstown to Omagh Road and when we told him the other workers had been using it for maybe 11 or 12 months he said, 'That is madness'. He said the road was too dangerous for that. He said if we continued to travel that route we would get hit.
"That policeman did not tell us what he was going to do about our security. Later, after the bomb, the same policeman said he 'could not recollect our conversation'. The whole thing is a cover-up from start to finish."
Mr O'Neill said, if action had been taken on January 7, the Teebane massacre might not have happened.
"The police could have directed the workvans to take different routes each day and provided us with protection.
"On January 8 I spoke to an Army officer with the Royal Green Jackets who was only made aware of our movements when I told him. He was able to put out extra patrols that day." In an inquest into the massacre police denied knowledge of the workmen's movements. According to the book Lost Lives, there was controversy at the time of the inquest when it emerged no police protection had been provided for the workers' van.
Two senior police officers said they had not been aware of the daily route taken by the bus between Lisanelly Army base near Omagh and the firm's base in Magherafelt. Both officers said they were surprised at the situation. One officer told the inquest: "I was not aware of receiving messages regarding the movements of workers from Lisanelly by Karl. It is a situation that should not have been allowed to develop." A solicitor acting for two of the families asked him: "If you had known that, would steps have been taken to give them some sort of protection?"
The officer replied: "That is correct. Protection would have been given throughout the route."
Asked by the solicitor whether the van was 'a sitting duck', the officer replied: "There was no coverage given to that vehicle."
The owner of Karl Construction said his firm had 'followed all procedures laid down by the RUC to the letter of the law and the information passed on to the RUC'. He said a detailed description of the van was provided to police and that police were aware that his workers at Lisanelly were moving in and out of Magherafelt every day.
But Mr O'Neill, who is still visibly traumatised, said he has "waited long enough for justice to be done" for those who died and the survivors. "We were just lambs to the slaughter," he said. Eight workmen died in the IRA landmine which exploded as their van negotiated Teebane crossroads on the main Omagh to Cookstown road. The men, all Protestants, worked for the Ballymena based Karl Construction which had been carrying out repairs on the Lisanelly Army base.
Four men who were meant to travel in the van that day went by car.
The van was dropping them off as they returned to their homes in Cookstown, Magherafelt, Doagh and Ballymena on a Friday evening. The device exploded at 5.30pm and the IRA's east Tyrone brigade later admitted responsibility. Seven workers were killed instantly while the eighth victim, Oswald Gilchrist, died on January 21 from his injuries. The other six workers were badly injured.
The bomb had been packed into blue plastic bins and was left beside a telegraph pole. Moments before the explosion, an Ulsterbus carrying 12 schoolgirls from St Patrick's Academy in Dungannon and a woman passenger had just gone through the crossroads. The driver said: "I braked and turned around and saw the van coming skidding down the road on its roof. Up the road, there were bodies." Two men were lying dead on the grass verge while a third was lying halfway out of the van's cab, calling for his friends. The bus driver used a scarf as a tourniquet on a man with severe head wounds.
The bomb, containing up to 500lb of home-made explosive, left a crater more than six metres wide and one metre deep at the side of the road. A command wire led to a firing point 230 metres away in some trees where a battery pack and a roll of tape were found. In the aftermath of the bombing, RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Anneseley visited the scene where he told reporters he would be asking for more police and troops. News Letter 24th December 2003

"Lest we forget"