Warrington bomb attacks

Infobox terrorist attack
title=Warrington bomb attacks
location=Warrington, England
target=a gasworks (First Attack) and Bridge Street, Warrington (Second Attack)
date=26 February 1993 and 20 March 1993
time=second attack occurred at 12:12 pm
timezone=UTC0
type=bombing
fatalities=2 (Jonathan Ball, aged 3; and Timothy Parry, aged 12)
injuries=56 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/20/newsid_2544000/2544121.stm]
perps=Provisional Irish Republican Army
motive="see Provisional IRAThe Warrington bomb attacks took place in Warrington, England in 1993. The first attack, on a gasworks, created a huge fireball but no fatalities, but a police officer was shot and injured after stopping a van connected to the attacks. [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo960304/text/60304w13.htm Hansard - Terrorist Incidents] ] The second attack on Bridge Street killed two children and injured many other people. The attacks were conducted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1201738.stm BBC:IRA campaign in England] ]

First attack

The first attack took place on 26 February 1993. Three devices exploded at the gasworks causing extensive damage. A police officer, PC Mark Toker, was shot and injured after stopping a van connected to the attacks, and a car was hijacked. [http://archive.thisischeshire.co.uk/2000/5/18/222195.html Gas bombers may be freed]

econd attack

At 11:58am on (20 March 1993), the telephone help charity The Samaritans received a coded message that a bomb was going to be detonated outside the Boots shop in Liverpool, fifteen miles away from Warrington. Merseyside Police investigated, and also warned the Cheshire Constabulary (who patrolled Warrington) of the threat, but it was too late to evacuate. At 12:12pm two bombs exploded, one outside Boots on Bridge Street and one outside the Argos catalogue store. It later turned out that the bombs had been placed inside cast-iron litter bins, causing large amounts of shrapnel.

Buses were organised to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics and crews from 17 ambulances were sent to deal with the aftermath.

Eyewitnesses of the time said that "the first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later."

There were two fatalities from the blast.

Three-year-old Johnathan Ball died at the scene, accompanied by his babysitter, who survived.

The second victim, 12-year-old Tim Parry, survived the impact with multiple injuries, but died on 24 March 1993 when doctors switched his life support machine off, having asked permission to do so from his family after a series of tests had found minimal brain activity [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3D71E3FF935A15750C0A965958260]

54 other people were injured, four of them seriously.

In popular culture

In 1994 Irish rock band the Cranberries released the song Zombie which was written as a protest to the bombings. The song went on to become one of their biggest hits. [citebook|title=The Rough Guide to Rock|author=Peter Buckley, Jonathan Buckley|year=2003|publisher=Rough Guides|id=ISBN 1843531054]

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/7306138.stm Memorial service in 2008 for the victims]
* [http://www.childrenforpeace.org/ The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Trust]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/20/newsid_2544000/2544121.stm Child killed in Warrington bomb attack] — from the BBC News On This Day feature
* [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/media/greenslade.htm The Damien Walsh Memorial Lecture by Roy Greenslade, 4 August 1998] "Some time later, political analysts Paul Bew and Gordon Gillespie, commented that the Warrington bombing created 'a wave of revulsion throughout the British Isles against terrorist killings.' What they meant, of course, was that media coverage of the deaths created a wave of revulsion."