System failed to record every vehicle - Omagh Inquiry

The British army's vehicle monitoring system failed to record every vehicle crossing the border at Aughnacloy in Co Tyrone during the Omagh Bombing Inquiry. Colonel Peter MacMullen, Assistant Head of Operational Legacy for the British Army, testified that the system had a known failure, raising concerns about the accuracy of the data collected.

He explained that there were instances where vehicles passed the cameras in close succession and were not always captured, and the footage would occasionally pause for a specific vehicle, although other cars were still being recorded during those periods. Colonel MacMullen referred to this as an anomaly that had been raised within the system, although he could not definitively explain how the Aughnacloy checkpoint operated in August 1998.

The Inquiry heard that the bomb car used in the 1998 attack may have taken a route to avoid the camera checkpoint or that the car was not recorded in the footage between 1pm and 2pm, when it is believed the vehicle crossed into Northern Ireland. Colonel MacMullen confirmed that there was no missing footage for the relevant South to North cameras during that period, and there was no indication of deliberate human interference with the recording.

He also stated that the Ministry of Defence could not confirm whether any state agency in the Republic of Ireland had cameras covering the area of Aughnacloy border crossing. The British Army no longer has copies of the recordings, which were supplied by the PSNI as part of the initial RUC investigation. The data from ANPR cameras was recorded in a database called VENGEFUL before being overwritten, but the British Army no longer has a record of the database, and there was no backup of the archived tape.