The family of a 15-year-old victim of the Omagh bomb have told of how they desperately searched for the missing girl in the aftermath of the explosion.
The Omagh bombing Inquiry heard that Lorraine Wilson was working in an Oxfam shop in the Co Tyrone town on the day of the Real IRA attack, which killed 31 people, including unborn twins. Lorraine had wanted to buy her school uniform out of her wages.
Her family, including younger brother Colin and her older sister Denise Kerrigan, provided a statement which was read to the inquiry by a lawyer on Monday afternoon.
“Lorraine was a joy. She was an easy-going person who loved life and she always put other people first,” they said.
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The family had been due to meet Lorraine in Omagh when she finished work on August 15th, 1998 but were unable to get there due to the bomb alert. The family later attempted to drive to the town centre after hearing the blast, but were turned back by police and opted to continue on foot.
“We started asking people if they had seen Lorraine but you could see how traumatised people were. Some were covered in debris and some people just could not speak,” they said.
The family went to Omagh hospital, which Ms Kerrigan remembered as a “harrowing” scene, in an attempt to find out information about Lorraine.
They then went to the town’s leisure centre, where they remained throughout Saturday and into Sunday waiting for news.
“Dad was saying surely there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel. He was holding on to the hope he would see his daughter again,” the statement went on.
The inquiry was told the family were brought to a temporary morgue at an army camp on Sunday to identify Lorraine’s body.
“We held Lorraine’s hand, hugged her, touched her hair, told her how much we loved her,” Ms Kerrigan said. “We all broke down trying to grasp the reality of the situation we were in.”
Ms Kerrigan said her father Godfrey, who died in 2018, became consumed for the rest of his life with fighting for justice for his daughter.
Inquiry chairman Lord Turnbull reflected on the fact that Lorraine had been working in an Oxfam shop on the day she died, which he said was in great contrast to “the moral depravity of those who would walk away from a car loaded with explosives in the middle of a main street”.
The inquiry was ordered by the UK government to examine whether the atrocity could reasonably have been prevented by British state authorities.
Earlier, the four children of a woman killed in the bombing said their worlds were “shattered” by their mother’s death.
The inquiry heard that Veda Short (56) was a “loving wife, mother and grandmother” who was very family-orientated and active within her church.
She was one of three staff members of Watterson’s drapers killed when they were evacuated into Market Street in Omagh on the day the bomb exploded.
A statement from her four children – Alison Crozier, Frances Henry, Ian Short and Elaine Magowan – was read to the inquiry by solicitor Conor Cullen. It described Mrs Short as someone who “never had a bad word to say about anyone”.
“Mum was just getting over the death of her own mother from the previous October,” they said. “She and Dad had just returned home from a holiday in Alicante. They had so much to look forward to.”
Mrs Short had eight grandchildren “whom she loved and adored” and her daughter Elaine had given birth to her fourth child a day before the attack.
“Mum was taken up to Belfast that night to see her new grandson. She had taken photographs of Lee and got to hold him,” the family said.
They said their father “was a broken man from that day on” and felt he had “nothing left to live for”.
“We lost both our parents that awful day. Our dad became depressed and with ill-health he passed away in June 2004, aged just 64. Another casualty of the Omagh bomb.”
Lord Turnbull said “it is obvious” that Mrs Short’s death was a terrible loss, particularly for her husband.
Later, Kevin Skelton told the hearing that he would never forget the smell of burning flesh and the cries of victims after the explosion.
Mother-of-four Philomena Skelton was 39 when she died in the blast while on a shopping trip with her husband and three daughters.
Mr Skelton told the inquiry that he and his wife were like “chalk and cheese”. He refereed GAA games while his wife liked to stay at home knitting and reading.
Mr Skelton said he could not even boil an egg and his wife, who he described as a “homebird”, did everything for him. He said his wife had welcomed a Romanian orphan into their home in 1997, an act he described as “pure kindness”.
Following his wife’s death, Mr Skelton maintained the family’s link to the charity and eventually married the mother of the Romanian girl who had stayed at his home.
He told the inquiry that he had brought his wife Philomena and their three daughters into Omagh to shop for items they needed for returning to school on the day.
Mr Skelton said they were inside a shop when they were alerted to a bomb scare by a traffic warden.
He said: “One of my daughters said as we crossed into SD Kells, ‘I wonder is the bomb in that car?’ But nobody thought, I never thought there was a bomb.”
Asked if he thought often about the fact that his family had walked past the car moments before it exploded, Mr Skelton replied “yes”.
He told the inquiry he had become “fed up” with shopping for shoes so left his wife and daughter Shauna in SD Kells while he went to another shop. He said as he was about to leave this shop, the bomb exploded.
“I walked out and went in through where the window was in SD Kells and I found her (Philomena) lying face down in the rubble,” he said.
Mr Skelton said he felt for his wife’s pulse but could not find it. He said he started to dig as he feared his daughter Shauna was buried in the rubble.
“When you start digging, some of the things I witnessed, that no human being should have to live with,” he said. “I was there in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just horrendous.”
He told the inquiry that he was ushered out of SD Kells but kept going back to search for his daughter, stating “nobody could calm me down”.
A stranger later asked if his daughter had ginger hair and when he said she did, Mr Skelton was told she was in the hospital.
“That was the first time I knew Shauna was alive.”
Ninety minutes later Mr Skelton found out that his other two daughters were alive.
The inquiry also heard from the family of Julia Hughes (21), a student killed in the blast who was a year out from graduating from Dundee University. Ms Hughes was working in a camera shop in Omagh to raise money before returning to her studies.
A statement from her twin brother, Justin, read by a barrister, said he and Julia shared an “unbreakable bond” and the grief of losing her was “insurmountable”.
None of the family attended the hearing, with Mr Hughes’ statement saying: “None of us feel we have the strength to do so.”
He said Ms Hughes was “just beginning to fulfil her immense potential when she was taken from us, her life so suddenly and cruelly cut short”.
He said his sister had been born four minutes before him and they had “remained inseparable throughout our lives together”.
They had attended Omagh Academy, where Ms Hughes was the goalkeeper on the hockey team. She went to Dundee University in 1995 to study accountancy.
“After working so hard she was denied the chance to graduate with her friends and classmates,” the statement added.
“But after her death Julia was honoured by Dundee University and was awarded her bachelor’s degree in accountancy. The university presented the degree to my family in 1999. It was a huge honour for us and hangs on my wall with pride.”
Mr Hughes’ statement said the university had also created an annual prize in memory of his sister. “To this day the Julia Hughes Prize is awarded by Dundee University to a student who has overcome difficulties and adversity, someone who goes on to excel in their field of study.”
Mr Hughes added: “The tragic and senseless loss of Julia in the Omagh bomb of 1998 left a huge void in all our hearts. A void which can never be filled.” – PA
