Police station bomb sounded like car hitting wall, says resident

The bomb that exploded outside a police station on Saturday sounded like a car crashing into a wall, a local resident has said.

Joe Morgan, a father of two young children, lives about 110 yards from Dunmurry police station and was getting ready for bed when he heard a very loud bang.

He said when his neighbours confirmed it was an explosion, his focus quickly turned to getting his children out of the house to safety.

Officers believe the bombing may have been carried out by the dissident republican group known as the New IRA.

The attack began when a delivery driver's car was hijacked in Twinbrook, west Belfast, shortly after 22:50 BST on Saturday.

His vehicle was fitted with a gas cylinder device and the man was forced to drive it to Dunmurry police station.

The man abandoned the vehicle in front of the building.

Several residents, including two babies, were being taken to safety by officers when it exploded.

Morgan was advised by police to leave his home and had to get his two children, aged two and four, out of bed to bring them to a relative's house for the night.

"They were in bed already and I was just flicking off lights and starting the wind down and I heard a loud bang" he told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"I grew up at the tail end of the Troubles, so my mind didn't actually immediately go to an explosion.

"I thought it was maybe a vehicle that had crashed into something in the street or my house."

When he looked out of his windows he saw his neighbours coming out onto the street and they confirmed that a bomb had exploded.

"A neighbour showed me a photo of the car on fire... obviously the focus is on the kids and getting them to safety."

Morgan explained his pregnant wife was staying at her mother's house on Saturday night and he was relieved she was not at home when the bomb went off.

He said police officers began knocking on doors in his street, advising residents to evacuate in case there was a secondary device.

"Your brain starts going 100 miles a minute at that point," he recalled.

He quickly packed a bag and took his children to his brother-in-law's house for the evening, where they asked him why they were having a "sleepover".

The family were not able to return to their home until teatime on Sunday.

The Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which represents rank and file PSNI officers, described the bombing as a "reckless act by desperate no-hopers".

"If you want the definition of madness, then this is no finer example of that," said its chair Liam Kelly.

"This doesn't move the needle towards any particular goal.

"All it does is show that there are still people who want to murder my colleagues and deliver pain and suffering in our communities."

Who are dissident republicans?

The term "dissident republicans" describes a range of individuals who do not accept the Good Friday Agreement - the 1998 peace deal which ended the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The Provisional IRA - the main armed republican paramilitary group for most of the Troubles - declared a ceasefire in the run up to the agreement and officially ended its violent campaign in 2005.

Dissident republicanism is made up of various groups which broke away from the Provisional IRA in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, including the Continuity IRA and New IRA.

The groups are much smaller than the Provisional IRA, although they have access to high-calibre weapons and have used improvised explosive devices and mortars in attacks and attempted attacks.