On 15 August 1998, Mark was a long distance lorry driver and had returned home and was washing his lorry when he saw his other off as she headed to Omagh for shopping.

His father then heard about the bomb and had a bad feeling.

Mark says he will always remember his dad going into Omagh and desperately searching for his mum.

At the time, Mark had arranged for his sister Mandy to be picked up from Dublin and be brought to the leisure centre in Omagh.

"It was not until the next day that we got confirmation that our precious mum was among the dead," the statement reads.

The tribute goes on to say Mrs Hawkes was a "hands-on farmer's wife" but she also loved fashion and enjoyed shopping trips to Omagh.

Mark and Mandy say she was "the glue that made the family so close", and that they were truly spoilt having her as their mum.

Through her involvement with the church, Mark says his mother touched and enriched so many lives.

The statement on behalf of Mark Hawkes and Mandy Walker says their mum, Olive, was the youngest of six children and moved to Omagh in 1946 from Monaghan.

She was 21 she married Mark's dad in 1958.

They says as a housewife their mother's priority was always caring for her family.

They says both their parents were regarded as "good company" and that they were a "perfect partnership".

We are now hearing a statement commemorating the life of Olive Hawkes.

The statement is on behalf of her son Mark Hawkes and daughter Mandy Walker.

Mrs Hawkes, 60, was a married mother of two who was killed while doing her regular Saturday shopping.

She was a Methodist church treasurer for 20 years and was said to be highly regarded in both unionist and nationalist communities.

She had been due to celebrate her ruby wedding anniversary just days after the bombing.

Image source, Family handout

Chairman Lord Turnball, says when one tries to think how one can cope with such loss there is no better better answer than can be found in Edith White's statement.

He details how she said in her statement she would go out driving, looking for Fred and Bryan, years after they had been killed.

"It is clear such as loss as Mrs White and her daughter suffered from can never be adjusted to or recovered from," he says,

Mrs White says in the years after the bomb she just "couldn't accept that they were gone".

"I don't understand why they had to be murdered," she adds.

She says she left their personal items - such as their toothbrushes - untouched and would have changed the bedsheets on Bryan's bed but, they "never came home and the silence is still there".

She says she has not been to counselling as she is a private person and she does not know if it would work, as no counsellor would know Fred or Bryan.

"I need to be able to block it out as best I can and say it can't have happened," she says.

As time goes on, Mrs White says it becomes harder to believe it didn't happen.

Edith says she was told by people at the barrier that they didn’t think there were many injuries, so she went back home, but when she found the phone had been cut off she began to feel concerned.

She says she doesn’t remember much after this, she ended up at the hospital then the leisure centre but does not remember how she got to either of them.

She says the next thing she remembers is that night when people were gathering at their house and the doctor came on Sunday to tell her what had happened.

She says she continued to walk around her house looking for Fred and Bryan.

Edith White, wife of Fred and mother of Bryan, says the last words she heard from her son were "see you shortly" as he and his father went into Omagh to go shopping.

Not long after they left, Edith recalls, she heard a bang and her neighbours then told her a bomb had gone off in the town.

She thought Fred and Bryan would have been further away from the explosion, so she waited in the house for a while before making her way into Omagh.

Mrs White says she walked to a barrier which blocked entry to the town, but she "saw nothing".

Linda says 1998 "was meant to be a time of hope, a time of a new Northern Ireland and nobody expected there to be a bomb".

Just a few months before the attack, the Good Friday Agreement had been signed, a peace deal intended to end the violence of the Troubles.

"The people of Omagh have come together and are trying to make sure that we don’t return to the old Northern Ireland with bitterness and anger," she says.

Linda adds that the inquiry process has been "very difficult" and has it has "brought back a lot of old pain and old wounds – of sadness and anger and loss".

"I can only hope that this inquiry thorough and that all the families are happy and content with the outcome of it and have confidence in it,” she says.

Linda said she has very fond memories of her father and brother, noting her father always had time for people despite how busy he was.

She says he had interests in gardening and woodwork and was involved in the community before he had his brain haemorrhage.

Linda and her brother, Bryan, had a "typical" sibling relationship, she says he never judged anyone despite his own personal views and values.

Bryan worked with people with disabilities where Linda says he learned to see the strengths in people.

He had just been promoted and was due to start his new job in Omagh the week of the bomb.

After the death of her father and brother, Fred and Bryan White, Linda says her mental and physical health has been "greatly" affected.

She says she tried to get counselling on a number of occasions but "it didn't seem to work" for her.

Linda begins her statement by saying her father, mother and brother had been away on holiday and returned home on the night of 14 August.

On the day of the bomb she was at her home in Ballygawley and was out in the field working with cattle, while family and friends were trying to get in touch with her.

She remembers driving down the Ballygawley Road, which she describes as "eerily quiet".

She says she first went to her parents' house then to the hospital and says the "scene at the hospital was horrendous, there was blood on the floor and the stairs, I was in shock".

The evidence resumes and we will hear pen portraits of Fred and Bryan White.

The father and son were shopping in Omagh when they were killed.

Fred White was 65 while Bryan was 27 - they were buried together.

There will be a pre-recorded witness statement from Linda, Fred's son and Bryan's sister.

A lawyer will then read a witness statement from Edith, Fred's wife and Bryan and Linda's mother.

Image source, Family handout

Chairman of the inquiry Lord Turnball says Mr McCombe and his family have been on a long journey.

He says it is "shocking" to hear that Ann McCombe was one three women who were killed while working in Watterson's drapers

He says he recognises how the Omagh bombing has directly affected their lives, giving the example of Clive's ambitions to go to Canada, which he wasn't able to do after the bomb.

Lord Turnball says her son's attitudes are a "credit to her" and their father.

We are now taking another short break.

Colan says he was in Omagh on the day of the bombing and was playing snooker.

When he was leaving the snooker club he heard a loud bang and saw smoke.

“I could not believe the scenes I was witnessing, the area where the bomb had gone off was filled with people," he says,

"I remember seeing bodies everywhere, there was just so much going on. I think at this point I had completely frozen and thought to myself – is this real life?

“My brain could not process what was going on, my body just went numb, it was like living in a nightmare.”

Ann's son, Colan McCombe, says the night of 14 August 1998 - the night before the bomb - will never leave him.

He says he remember his mother telling him "don't be sitting up all night, you need to go to your bed".

They were the last words his mother said to him.

We are now hearing testimony from a statement from Ann's son Clive.

He says his mother was one of the most kind and caring people ever.

"My mother was rarely seen without a smile on her face.

"She always put herself last."

He says that she would always say "if you can be anything, be kind".

Image source, Family handout

Mr McCombe now moves on to arriving back in Omagh, saying “you could feel death in the air”

“Everything was so still, you did not hear a dog barking or a car and there was nobody about” he says.

He describes being taken to the morgue to identify Ann.

He had to prove to a police inspector that he was who he said he was and that he was Ann’s husband.

“As I told them everything they ticked it off, this was very hard and left me angry," he says.

“It was the longest day I have ever lived.

"I will never, ever forget it.

“I see Ann all the time but that image stays in my head and will be in my head until the day I die.”

After hearing the news of the bomb, Stanley McCombe says he remained hopeful that Ann and the other staff working in the shop where she was employed would have been evacuated.

Mr McCombe says he then met someone who told him "a lot of people had been killed at the bottom of the town".

Mr McCombe tried to call her but he could not get through.

He later learned she had been killed.

Stanley McCombe's statement sets out that he was not in Omagh on the day of the bombing because he was in Scotland with their eldest son Clive for the World Pipe Band Championships.

"When I was away I would phone home every night, I called Ann on the Thursday night and at the end of the call I said I would ring again on Friday night but Ann told me not to bother and to leave it until Saturday night," he says,

"The Thursday was the last time I spoke to Ann."