FATHER'S DAY BOMB

They knew there would be children on the streets.

The youngsters were out in their droves, making their pocket money stretch to some aftershave, socks or maybe a tie for dad on Father's Day.

It was a picture of innocence. But in a few seconds of mayhem, the twisted warlords of the IRA turned it into a grim caricature.

To Warrington, now add Manchester.

In March 1993, angel-faced Jonathan Ball, just three, and Tim Parry, 12, died instantly when two bombs left in a wrought iron litter bin exploded as they bought presents for Mother's Day.

Yesterday the little ones were targets again as a massive IRA van bomb devastated a main shopping street, injuring 226 people and causing pounds 100 million worth of damage.

The entire front of a Marks & Spencer store, packed with shoppers, was torn off and an overhead walkway was left a mangled wreck.

Windows were blown out for a square mile area, a four-storey stairwell in one office block was torn out, debris littered the road and a foot-square piece of the van's back axle lay 20 yards from the point of the explosion.

One entire wall of Manchester's Arndale Centre was torn off, a steel canopy on Marks & Spencer's was twisted into a huge S and every window in the store was blown in.

Hundreds ran screaming from the mayhem, many covered in blood from cuts inflicted by flying glass. One little girl was crying: "Daddy, you promised me it wouldn't go off."

Another young child was blown off a wall and down stairs near Manchester Cathedral. He was rescued by police using heavy bolt cutters to cut through a padlock.

The IRA phoned a coded warning just 80 minutes before the 11.20am blast. Police Chief Superintendent Peter Harris said: "If it had gone off without warning it would have been carnage." And ambulance press officer Brian Johnson said: ""If there had been people in the immediate area we would have been talking about carnage - many hundreds would have died. We have been very, very lucky."

The bomb was in a white panel van parked directly outside the Marks & Spencer store. Two hours before the blast a parking ticket had been slapped on the windscreen.

Chief Superintendent Harris said: "A man with an Irish accent rang a local TV station to say a vehicle was parked containing a bomb. It was taken seriously and we decided to evacuate.

"In a busy city centre at that time of the morning, it is not easy to carry out the evacuation procedure.

"We were able to get people out using side streets and local businesses. The reason people were injured was the force of the blast."

An army bomb disposal team had been approaching the van with a robot to carry out a controlled explosion when it detonated.

More than 81 ambulances from four counties ferried the casualties to six hospitals and paramedics were drafted in from up to 50 miles away to tend to the injured. Medical workers rushed from their homes to the city centre to help the dozens of injured.

Nurse Louise Cross, 27, who was 100 yards away drawing money out of her bank when the bomb exploded, said: "The ground just shook and I heard the bang.

"There was glass flying everywhere and rubble was falling off the buildings.

"There were hundreds of people screaming and trying to rush away from the site of the explosion."

Minutes after the detonation plate glass was still falling from shop windows and a plume of black smoke poured into the air from an old office block which had been set on fire. Shopkeepers joined police and helped them to rush shoppers clear of the area through offices and a maze of back streets.

Many of the casualties went to nearby Victoria Station, where pools of blood gathered on the tiled floor of an emergency first aid centre. One man's shirt was stained down the back with his own blood. A three-inch shard of glass stuck out of his neck.

He said: "I didn't even know I had been hit until I felt the blood running down my back."

Shopworker Ghulan Mustafa, 36, said: "There were people lying on the floor with blood coming from them and people trying to do anything they could to help them.

"One man was losing a lot of blood from a head wound and someone was trying to bandage him with a towel."

Belinda Moore, 34, and two friends were trying on bridesmaids' dresses when the bomb went off. She said: "We had just walked up the stairs to leave and then decided to go back when we heard the explosion.

"We were blown back down the stairs and we all landed in a heap. I can't work out whether I banged my head or whether I was hit by a piece of flying debris."

Out of the 226 people injured and taken to hospital, nine were being treated as serious cases, two with head injuries.

The youngest patient was a four-month-old baby boy treated for cuts to his hands. Dr Jonathan Borrill said: "His parents were obviously upset."

Also among the casualties were three policemen and an army bomb disposal man hit by falling debris.

The head of the police anti-terrorist squad, John Grieve, arrived in Manchester last night for talks as it was learned that the city centre could be closed for at least the next 48 hours.

Manchester's deputy chief constable Malcolm Cairns described the bombing as "a vicious unprovoked attack on a civilian population."

He added: "It was a desperate act of desperate people, a massive explosion the like of which we have only seen in London in the past."

Last night fire officers were still searching the debris with heat- seeking equipment to check that no one had been trapped by falling masonry.

After the explosion all roads to the town centre were blocked as anxious relatives tried to reach the city to check on loved ones.

Police issued a special number for them to call. It is 0161-817 8178.

My baby, my God, my baby...even an unborn child is in the front line as terror strikes in a packed shopping street: Pages 4 and 5

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