Confusion and errors preceding the Omagh explosion were made public on the first day of the inquest as civilians who received bomb warnings and police officers who initially dealt with those warnings described events.
The first witness, Ms Margaret Hall, said she received two bomb warnings, telephoned into the UTV newsroom in Belfast.
She said the first call came in at 2.32 p.m., the second three minutes later. Both were from by a middle-aged man with a thick, rural, Northern accent. Ms Hall later said she may have taken the calls one or two minutes earlier. After both calls, Ms Hall said she immediately rang 999 and passed on the information to the RUC. The second call came in as she was informing the police about the first. She answered this call at about 2.35 p.m, she said. This call was shorter, with the caller saying only "Martha Pope, 15 minutes bomb, Omagh town".
Under examination, Ms Hall agreed there had been nothing in the second message to indicate a particular part of the town was to be bombed. She said that in passing on the second message she had not mentioned the reference to Omagh town, only the reduced time of 15 minutes.
The second witness, RUC Constable George Mullan, had taken Ms Hall's first emergency call. He said he received the call at 2.30 p.m., with Ms Hall telling him the caller had said: "There is a bomb in Omagh Main Street near the courthouse, 500lbs, and it's going to go off in 30 minutes".
Constable Mullan said he had phoned Omagh RUC station, as well as putting details into the RUC's internal ATLAS computer system. These were available on the network from 2.34 p.m., he said.
A third witness worked with the Samaritans in Coleraine, Co Derry and was granted anonymity. Speaking from behind a screen, "Hilary Unknown" said that at about 2.34 p.m. a caller had said he was giving a warning about a bomb in Omagh town centre. Ms Unknown said she asked the caller to clarify where in Omagh. "`About 200 yards up from High Street, the main street', was the reply," she said. The inquest was shown an entry from the RUC's ATLAS system logged in Coleraine which said there was a bomb warning in "Omagh town centre, near the courthouse (200 yards)" .
RUC Constable William Hall was station duty officer at Omagh RUC station on the day of the bombing. At about 2.30 p.m. he received a phone call from Belfast concerning a bomb warning. His handwritten note of this recorded : "A Divison. UTV. Main Street. Court. 500, Martha Pope". Asked what he understood by "Main Street. Court. 500", Constable Hill said he took it the courthouse was the target, as it was in the main street, and `500' (lbs) was the size of the bomb. He did not recall seeing any distance from the courthouse mentioned.
Mr Barry Fox, solicitor, for Ms Esther Gibson and Mrs Avril Monaghan and Maura Monaghan, asked Constable Hall why he had assumed the bomb to be at the courthouse when Constable Mullan's notes said that it was near the courthouse on the main street. Constable Hall replied that was the information as he had taken it. In reply to Mr Michael Mansfield QC, for Mrs Elizabeth Rushe, Constable Hall said he understood the term "Main Street, Omagh" to encompass Market Street and High Street. He said he had not communicated the second, more precise warning to the control room in the station as he had already notified them of the first warning and officers there also had access to the ATLAS system.
Mr Fox said the town centre as understood by anyone in Omagh was around the junction of High Street and Bridge Street. Constable Hall eventually agreed that this might be the case. This distance is some 200 yards from the courthouse, Mr Fox said. Mr Stephen Ritchie, for the RUC Chief Constable, told the inquest the bomb was in fact placed 400 yards from the courthouse.