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OUTCASTS
EXCLUSIVE:
By NICOLA TALLANT, NEIL LESLIE and JOE GORROD

Renegade couple hounded out of home as Real IRA admit massacre
RENEGADE republican lovers Mickey McKevitt and Bernadette Sands were hounded into hiding last night as a town without pity planned a march on their home.
The couple who head the 32 County Sovereignty Committee faced their home town's wrath after their military wing, the Real IRA admitted it carried out the Omagh massacre.
Angry townsfolk in Dundalk Co Louth have announced that they will picket the couple's £150,000 home tonight.
And McKevitt and Sands last night begged their family priest to save them.
Fled
As the world reeled in disgust at the admission of the horror bomb raid, the pair fled with their family, leaving windows open and children's bikes lying in the garden. They had already been turfed out of their souvenir and T-shirt shop in the town's main shopping arcade.
In panic-stricken despair, mother-of-three Sands, sister of IRA hunger-strike martyr Bobby Sands, turned to the family priest for sanctuary. The rebel hardliner who refused to accept the IRA ceasefire sobbed down the phone that they had nothing to do with the slaughter of the innocents.
She told parish priest Canon Desmond Campbell that she was being driven to despair by the finger of suspicion.
She told him how herself and her lover had been distraught since their political group was linked to the massive bomb that ripped through the heart of Omagh and killed 28 people.
She denied that either her or McKevitt had anything to do with the massacre and claimed they would not have anything to do with such activity.
She wept as she told the priest how her and her children's lives had been turned upside down since the bomb blast.
Plea
A senior Garda source said McKevitt, who was calmer, then took the phone from his wife and repeated her pleas.
He asked Fr Campbell to make a public plea on behalf of him and Sands confirming their innocence.
Gardai believe the couple have been under strain since the bomb ripped through Omagh.
The Real IRA has been associated by 3 security chiefs with the 32 County Sovereignty Committee.
Yesterday the couple's T-shirt shop at a Dundalk shopping centre was shut.
Traders in the complex said they would all close down their businesses and leave unless the McKevitts were forced out.
The owner of the centre ordered them out.
But hardline republican McKevitt told Fr Campbell in the phone call: "I am innocent. I had neither hand, act nor part in the Omagh bombing."
He claimed he and Bernadette Sands had been fingered as suspects for the massacre, and informed the parish priest: "The first I knew of this was when I heard it on the news. I had nothing to do with it.
"At personal level I am a republican. But I want to make it clear I had nothing to do with this."
McKevitt made his statement to the priest - the same priest who annulled his first marriage - after Fr Campbell gave a sermon in his local church yesterday.
Suspect
The priest explained: "I had said during the Mass that it was very disturbing to know that the chief suspect in the bomb attack was living in my parish.
"I believe it is because of this that Mickey McKevitt and Bernadette Sands called me."
The priest told how he had received a phone call early yesterday afternoon from a distraught Sands who wept uncontrollably before McKevitt took the phone from her.
Father Campbell said: "She was crying so much she could hardly speak. She told me she was terribly upset and afraid for herself and her children.
"She said she was frightened because there was a march planned and she was afraid that somebody would hurt her children. She said she was worried sick."
The priest said Sands had broken down in tears before McKevitt took the phone.
"He told me he had neither hand, act nor part in this.
"He said the first he knew about it was when he heard the news.
"He said there was going to be a march on his house and that his wife was very upset. He said she was afraid for the children.
"He told me he was completely innocent and said his wife had a terrible weight on her shoulders.
"He did not ask me to go public with his statement but I felt it was my duty to do so.
"I have known him since I was a child and he has indicated to me that he is under threat. He has said him and his wife are in dread for their children.
"He seemed to be genuinely worried for them."
The priest told how he would tell the congregation at his Dundalk church today about the call.
Last night the McKevitt's seaside home at Blackrock - outside Dundalk -remained empty.