The police commander in Omagh on the day the town was bombed has said many of his officers felt “guilty and responsible” that they had evacuated members of the public towards the explosive device.
Mr Baxter said in the following months there were multiple hoax bomb warnings in the town, using the same code word as in the Real IRA explosion.
Retired superintendent James Baxter also told the Omagh Bombing Inquiry of the trauma caused to victims due to more than 70 hoax bomb warnings in the town in the years following the massacre.
Mr Baxter said he attended many funerals over the following days.
“Many of those people evacuated made their way down Market Street to the very site of the bomb blast and some were either fatally or seriously injured.
