Forensics hope in bomb inquiry

Kent Police hope forensic science can provide new clues

Kent Police believe advances in forensic science may provide new clues about a 1989 IRA bombing which killed 11 Royal Marine bandsmen.

No-one was ever prosecuted for planting the 15lb bomb at the Royal Marine School of Music in Deal, Kent, which exploded in September 1989.

It destroyed the base while the band practised in it, and 60 bandsmen, many of them teenagers, were injured by the blast.

But a routine review of the unsolved crime will examine whether new technology can be applied to existing evidence.

The review of the original investigation will be overseen by Kent Police's top investigator, Detective Superintendent Dennis McGookin.

His team's evidence helped convict Kenneth Noye last month of the M25 murder of Stephen Cameron.

The Deal bombing review will involve detectives re-reading and examining dozens of boxes of evidence held at Kent Police headquarters in Maidstone.

The latest forensic techniques will also be used on recovered parts of the bomb.