Omagh payout appeal begins today

Four leading members of the Real IRA will begin their appeal today against a multimillion-pound lawsuit by families of people killed in the Omagh bomb atrocity. The founder of the Real IRA, Michael McKevitt, and three other men – Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly – were found to be responsible by a judge for the 1998 terrorist attack in a landmark civil case brought by victims' families at Belfast high court in June 2009. The families were awarded £1.6m in compensation. All four, who were named in court as leading Real IRA activists, will start their appeal against that judgment in the court of appeal in Belfast later this morning. The Omagh families took their civil action to the high court in Belfast after the failure of the police to secure a criminal conviction over the bombing of the Co Tyrone town. They sued five men and the Real IRA as an organisation for up to £14m in a case which made legal history when it sat to hear evidence in both Belfast and Dublin. Twenty-nine people were killed in the Omagh bombing and dozens more were injured. It was the single biggest atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles.