The second IRA attack on Warrington

Saturday, March 20, 1993

- The telephone help charity The Samaritans received a coded warning at 11.58am about a bomb outside a Boots chemist shop in Liverpool, 16 miles from Warrington.

- Merseyside Police responded to the warning and informed Cheshire Police but there was no time to evacuate Warrington town centre.

- Two bombs, hidden in separate cast-iron litter bins, exploded on Bridge Street just after 12.12pm, the first outside a British Gas showroom and the second near Argos and Boots.

- The first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later, with police describing the bins and shrapnel as ‘huge hand grenades’.

- Buses were organised to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics, some on motorcycles, were sent to administer on the spot treatment.

- Crews from 17 ambulances dealt with casualties and a team of four plastic surgeons travelled to Warrington Hospital from the regional burns unit at Whiston Hospital, Knowsley.

- Johnathan Ball, who was in town with his babysitter buying a Mother's Day Card, was killed at the scene.

- Tim Parry was caught in the full force of the blast and died five days later in hospital.

- 56 other people were injured, including Bronwen Vickers, aged 33, who lost a leg.

- Senior police officers were said to believe that the later attack was a reprisal for the police success after the gasworks blast.

- Nobody has ever been brought to justice for the second Warrington bombing.