UH/1124

Bomb victim families renew their appeal as fund drains in legal action
BY TERRY PATTERSON

OMAGH bomb victims' families are due to meet their legal team today (Thursday) in the wake of a further appeal for public donations as controversy raged that funds already in the £1 million legal campaign purse are draining away.
Writs have been served on five men by the families seeking compensation from the alleged bombers. They include jailed Real IRA members, Liam Campbell and Michael McKevitt. A spokesman for the families insisted that today's meeting with London solicitors, H2O, was nothing more than one of a regular series convened to ensure the Belfast High Court case due to be heard next year remains on track.
But press reports and speculation at the weekend claimed the families of the 29 people who died and of the hundreds injured in the August 15,1998, atrocity are to demand access to the solicitors' books.
And Jason McCue, one of the lawyers, admitted: "A large percentage of the money raised has gone on the campaign. The families are going everywhere - they've been out to America lobbying to get the Real IRA designated and there was quite a lot of money in that.
"If we didn't have the campaign, and it was a normal case, it would have cost a lot less. I'm probably being over defensive. It's just that it gets on my nerves a bit when I know how much hardship everyone on the legal side, including the barristers, has endured for it."
H20 are reportedly working at reduced rates in the bid to win, possibly millions of pounds in compensation, and they have engaged a strong team of barristers from the Matrix chambers where British Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife, Cherie Booth Blair practises law.
But Mr McCue refuted suggestions that most of the money which had so far been expended had been spent on legal fees.
He said: "The legal fees are a proportion of that. There are several elements to the fees solicitors and barristers, and we have four or five barristers on the case.
"I'm fed up being embarrassed about it. We've had four people working on it for two years. It's an enormous case. We had to do the investigation. This is one of the points the families don't get. They think we can just have what the police have."
Michael Gallagher, chairman of Omagh Victims Support Group and father of fatal bomb victim Aidan, is to meet H20 today. He will be accompanied by Gerald McFarland, whose 17-year-old daughter, Samantha, also died in the explosion. Mr Gallagher said he was going to the meeting for an update, and that there was no intention of putting the solicitors under any pressure.
He added: "We want to check what evidence they have amassed. As far as money is concerned, our solicitors can show and prove to us they are doing a good job and they are on track with the civil action. They have our full support, but where the public have supported the families in raising the £1 million we feel it is important to make sure that we are the guardians of that support.
"Off course, I have no reason to believe that the meeting will not, at times, be challenging. We always ask difficult questions. As clients of a serious civil action, we have to."
The families and H20 subsequently united to issue a joint statement on the controversy in which they agreed a vast amount of research and hard work had already gone into the preparation of the case.
The statement continued: "As we can all see from the tens of millions of pounds spent on tribunals in the Republic of Ireland and the Saville Inquiry in Northern Ireland, going to law is not cheap.
"We are deeply grateful to all those donors who have enabled us to come to this stage and we take the opportunity to appeal once again to the generous public to help us see our campaign for justice through to the end."
The statement added that the "strong and affectionate bond" which existed between the legal team and the relatives would not be weakened.
It ended: "Together with the help of our friends we will see this case through to it's conclusion."