A delivery driver’s vehicle was hijacked and the man was forced at gunpoint to take an “elaborate hoax device meant to look like a car bomb” to a Derry police station on Sunday night, the city’s police chief has said.
The incident sparked a security alert which caused significant disruption to the area around Waterside police station in Richill Park, with people forced to leave their homes, roads closed and a primary school unable to open for the day.
PSNI Chief Supt Nigel Goddard told reporters on Monday that the “obvious line of inquiry” was that dissident republicans were responsible.
Police also believe the New IRA was behind an attack on two police officers in Strabane, Co Tyrone, on Friday. A bomb was detonated at the side of a police vehicle while the officers, who were not injured, were on patrol in the town. Four men were arrested in connection with the attack and later released.
The delivery driver’s car was hijacked by three masked men at about 10.30pm on Sunday in the Curryneirin area of Derry. An object – described by Chief Supt Goddard as a “petrol cannister with a pipe attached to it” – was placed in the back of his car and the man was told to drive to the Waterside police station, where he was forced at gunpoint to abandon the vehicle. He was then able to raise the alarm.
“This led to a protracted, overnight operation in order to make that vehicle safe and to keep the community safe,” Chief Supt Goddard said. “Obviously that has caused considerable disruption across the area and needs to be condemned as reckless and futile.”
Describing it as an “attack on the community” by the “cowardly and senseless efforts of a few”, he said people were moved from their homes, “children couldn’t go to school this morning” and that access to Altnagelvin hospital for staff and those in need of medical care was impacted.
“We hope the driver who was caught up in this horrific ordeal can recover and our thoughts are with him today,” he said.
The incident was widely condemned by politicians including Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who said he would be “concerned” that there had been two such attacks within a week.
“We have to be very, very clear that the people on this island and of Northern Ireland want no more violence, they want politics to work,” he said, adding that there would be full co-operation between the PSNI and the Garda over the issue.
“We condemn utterly anyone who is contemplating violence and anyone in paramilitary organisation that believes they have a right to impose such barbarity and violence on people.”
Northern Ireland’s first minister designate, Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill, said the reports from Derry were “extremely concerning” and that she had been in contact with the PSNI.
“More chaos and disruption for the local community. These people that reach for the past need to hear that it’s not available to them. We must all unite against these reckless actions,” she said.
Local MP and SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said: “Ordinary people who are getting ready to do a day’s work, children preparing for school and the community as a whole have been impacted, with significant disruption caused as a result.
“Our thoughts are with the driver who has been through a terrible ordeal and all the people affected.”
DUP Assembly member for Foyle Gary Middleton said he visited a local community centre during the night and praised the work of staff who “rallied to help families – babies who needed milk, children who needed somewhere to sleep, nurses coming off shift who needed somewhere to lie down”.
“The disruption has been incredible but so has the community response,” he said.
