PSNI release footage of 'cowardly' car bomb attack outside Belfast police station

LAST UPDATE | 18 hrs ago

THE PSNI HAS released footage of the moment a car bomb exploded outside a police station on the outskirts of Belfast over the weekend. 

The police force said the body cam footage shows officers evacuating homes in Dunmurry as the bomb detonated.

Police have confirmed the car had been “hijacked” and that the New IRA is believed to be responsible for the incident. 

PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher condemned the incident as a “deliberate, reckless and stupid attack that endangered so many people’s lives”. 

“My thoughts are with the delivery driver, of colleagues I’ve mentioned, of those local residents who had fear brought to their doors. But also to the incredible, brave police officers who rushed towards danger to make sure they evacuated those residents from the harm caused by this device,” he said.

He said the force has commenced an attempted murder investigation which will be led by its terrorist investigation unit.

“This attack will achieve absolutely nothing but unify condemnation by everyone, and the arrest and prosecution of those responsible,” he added. 

“There is no place for these mindless thugs, these idiots who think it’s acceptable to carry out such stupid attacks. I can promise you, we will do all we can to identify them and bring them before the courts.”

It comes after political leaders from across the island united to condemn the incident, which resulted in the evacuation of nearby homes, including two babies.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly appeared at a press conference at Parliament Buildings this morning to speak against the attack.

The PSNI believe the car was hijacked shortly after 10.50pm on Saturday in the Twinbrook area of west Belfast and a gas cylinder device was placed in the boot.

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It is the second such car bomb incident in recent weeks, after a delivery driver was forced at gunpoint to transport the device to Lurgan police station in an incident blamed on dissident republicans. The device did not explode on that occasion.

Yesterday, Ireland’s Defence Minister Helen McEntee called it “cowardly and reckless” and criticised it for endangering the lives of the public as well as PSNI officers.

At today’s joint preference of northern figureheads, Michelle O’Neill said it was a day for “strong condemnation”, not “political nonsense”.

O’Neill added that they are sending a clear message of condemnation of a car bomb attack on a police station believed to have been carried out by dissident republicans.

O’Neill said communities are “absolutely united in condemnation” of what has happened, adding that nobody wants to see such incidents on their streets or the “fear that that community experienced” on Saturday evening.

This is a day for us to be united in saying these groups have no place in our society, and it’s a day for us all to say collectively that anybody with any information whatsoever should come forward to the PSNI, because these people need to be dealt with before the courts.

Deputy First Minister Little-Pengelly added there is a “responsibility across all of the political parties, particularly at a leadership level, to be sending a very clear message” against the “terrorist attack” on Saturday night.

“Terrorism is always wrong. It is always without justification should that have been 10, 20, 40, 50 years ago or on Saturday night,” Little-Pengelly added.

“It is not our present. It is not wanted, and we need to stand together against that.”

‘Desperate bunch of no hopers’

Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland programme, Police Federation for Northern Ireland chair Liam Kelly called the incident the result of “another fruitless and reckless act by a desperate bunch of no hopers”.

Kelly said that his PSNI colleagues “put themselves in danger to protect the public” and that it was “only through the grace of God that we don’t have anybody injured” as a result of the incident.

“You don’t arrive at the gates of a police station without with a bomb in a car for any other reason but to cause mayhem and carnage,” Kelly said.

With reporting by PA and Jane Moore

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