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Omagh father wants Adams TV showdown

THE father of a child killed in the Omagh bombing wants a TV "head to head" with Gerry Adams, following news the West Belfast MP is to present a Channel 4 programme on religion.
London lawyer Victor Barker, whose son James was just 12 when he was killed by the Real IRA in 1998, has slammed the TV station as "completely misguided" for inviting Mr Adams to take part in the series.
Mr Adams is set to present an episode about Christ as part of a new factual series called The Bible: A History, during which he will examine Christian teachings on "love, forgiveness and repentance". The series will be screened in February.
Mr Barker, who has previously claimed "asking Gerry Adams to speak about love and forgiveness is like asking Myra Hindley to lecture on child-minding", said the TV station has let down the victims of the Omagh bomb.
The single worst atrocity in the history of the Troubles, the Omagh bomb claimed the lives of 31 people, including nine children and a woman pregnant with twins. Over 200 were injured.
Speaking at the weekend, Mr Barker said Channel 4 was more interested in creating "shock value" to increase viewing figures.
He said: "After the Omagh atrocity, people like Gerry Adams who came from the same tradition as those in the Real IRA leadership had a chance to atone for the past. We asked him to help us bring the Real IRA bomb plotters to justice, but he did not even want to know.
"He even denied he knew men like Michael McKevitt, the Real IRA's founder, even though until 1997 he (McKevitt) was the Provisional IRA's quartermaster.
"If he (Adams) wanted to demonstrate a sense of Christian forgiveness, he could have stood by the Omagh families when they asked for his full cooperation in catching the killers as part of our campaign for justice."
In an open letter to Ralph Lee, the head of specialist factual programming at Channel 4, Barker writes: "May I suggest that you ask him (Adams) to talk to me on your programme, and ask him why, with all the information he has at his fingertips, he would not even acknowledge that he knew (the IRA's) quartermaster Michael McKevitt and his colleagues in the Real IRA."
In his e-mail response to Mr Barker, Mr Lee said the decision to include Mr Adams in the programme "has not been taken lightly or without consideration for the impact that it will have on victims of IRA violence".
He added: "Our hope in commissioning the programme, however, is that it can contribute in some small way to the process of reconciliation in the community."
Earlier this year, families of the Omagh bomb victims won a landmark legal case to have Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly held liable for the murders.
They also won damages of £1.6 million.