Anger: Reid

The Northern Ireland secretary has condemned leaks which suggest security sources knew that the Omagh bomb attack was set to happen 11 days before it occurred.

The leaked report - conducted by the Police Ombudsman - suggests that Special Branch did not pass on a tip-off about a threatened attack in Omagh.

Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's draft report said if the information had been passed on and security checkpoints been put in place, the bombers may have been deterred.

Dr Reid said the leak was regrettable and inaccurate.

"I want to first of all condemn utterly the leaking of an unfinished report before those mentioned in it and affected by it have a chance to submit their views. It is grossly unfair to the police but it's also grossly unfair to the families, they have gone through enough grief," he said.

The report is currently being investigated by the chief constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, who has asked for more time to consider its claims.

However, Dr Reid said the report did not suggest in any way that the bombing could have been avoided.

"I'm not getting into the comments of the reports but there was no warning that there would be a bomb in Omagh," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "I have confidence in the chief constable, I have confidence in the ombudsman and I have confidence in people to respond to the finished report where the disputed facts have at least been responded to."

The RUC also hit back saying the report contained "so many significant factual inaccuracies, unwarranted assumptions, misunderstandings and material omissions that a request has been made to the ombudsman's office for a reasonable period of time to respond in detail with what we see as the serious deficiencies in this report".

Despite Dr Reid's intervention, the government is facing growing demands for a full public inquiry into the 1998 attack - which left 29 dead.

Sinn Fein MP Pat Doherty has accused the RUC of a "cover up".

"We have come through a peace process, we have come through the Good Friday Agreement, where we were promised a new beginning to policing, and we will never have that while we have the special branch and MI5 controlling the RUC," he said.

The senior Ulster Unionist Lord Maginnis dismissed Doherty's claims as "entirely wrong". "The people who killed those in Omagh were not the police and yet the Ombudsman's office through this report, through using one anonymous telephone call, has shifted the focus of attention from the bombers to the police," he said.

The families of the bomb attack's victims gave a muted response to the leak saying they only wanted the facts to be established rather than a witch-hunt.

Stanley McCombe, whose wife Ann was among the dead, said: "I have no grievance against the RUC, but I want the truth and I don't care who it hurts."

The shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Quentin Davies, said: "Whatever the truth of what happened - and we will not know that until we have seen the full report and heard the detailed police response - nothing should be allowed to eclipse the horror of this particular mass murder and the iniquity of those who perpetrated it. Anything else is of secondary consideration."