Inquest into car bomb hears of car rental

A Belfast businessman told the Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday how a man rented a car from him that was later used in the 1972 Dublin bombing which killed two CIÉ workers.

Mr Thomas Duffy (29), and Mr George Bradshaw (24), died when a car bomb exploded at Sackville Place at 8.15 p.m. on December 1st, 1972. The men had just left the nearby CIÉ workers' club following a bomb warning from gardaí.

Mr Philip Moley, who owned a car hire firm in Belfast, told the bombing inquest that on the morning of November 30th, 1972 he was contacted by a man seeking to rent a car.

He described the man as about 40 years of age, six feet tall, between 14 and 15 stone, with fair to "dirty fair" hair and a round red face. He spoke with an English accent.

The man rented the car using a driver's licence in the name of Mr Joseph Flemming. Licences did not have photos on them at that time, Mr Moley explained.

It transpired that a Mr Flemming had had his car and driver's licence stolen earlier that year.

Three days after the car was used as a bomb in Dublin, Mr Moley was interviewed by RUC officers and gardaí. He gave a description of the man, but was not shown any photographs by the officers. He was not contacted again, he said.

Mr Patrick Cadogan gave evidence yesterday in relation to the car believed to have been used in a second Sackville Place bombing, on January 20th, 1973. Mr Thomas Douglas, a 21-year-old CIÉ worker from Stirling, Scotland was killed when a car bomb exploded, shortly after 3.15 p.m.

Mr Cadogan said he had been on Cathal Brugha Street at around 1.30 p.m. on January 20th, 1973 when he noticed a red Vauxhall or Ford Escort with a Northern Ireland registration ending in "9" parked opposite the Regent Cinema.

A woman and a man got out of the car. The woman was tall with sandy or light brown hair. "She was very plain and had a long pointed nose," he said. The man was also tall, around six feet, and had short black hair. "The best way to describe him was that he looked like the former Labour leader Dick Spring," Mr Cadogan told the court.