A SHALDON doctor was one of the key witnesses in the landmark civil court case against the men alleged to be behind Northern Ireland's worst single atrocity.

Dr Nicholas Cooling, a consultant psychiatrist, acted for the families who successfully sued the four Real IRA terrorists involved in the Omagh bombing which killed 29 people and injured and maimed hundreds of others 11 years ago.This week a judge ruled in favour of the families, and awarded them a total of £1.6 million damages. The case made legal history because it was the first time a terrorist organisation had been successfully sued in the civil court, where the burden of proof is less than that needed in the criminal court. The families said it was never about the money, but the legal right to name the men as the murderers. Dr Cooling, 53, who attended Shaldon Primary School and lives in the village, spent seven years travelling to and from Northern Ireland to meet the relatives of the victims, and got to know them extremely well. He gave vital evidence to the court in Belfast on the psychological effect the murders had on the families, and was cross examined for two days by lawyers for the four men, who did not present any expert medical evidence of their own. Dr Cooling described to the court how the atrocity, caused by a 500lb car bomb, had deeply traumatised the relatives. Although confirming to this newspaper his close involvement in the case, he said he was unable to make any comment on the legal proceedings, in case there was an appeal. Dr Cooling, whose mother, Dr Rosalind Cooling, is a GP practising in Teignmouth, has been an expert witness in many other high profile cases in the past, including the Hillsborough and Bradford football disasters, and the Ladbroke Grove rail crash which killed 31 people in 1999.