THE PSNI HAVE confirmed that a device left in a hi-jacked car outside a Derry police station on Sunday night was an explosive, despite them previously referring to it as “an elaborate hoax”.

Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton said: “Following further technical examination of the object recovered from a hijacked vehicle outside Waterside Police Station on Sunday evening (20 November), police can now confirm it was a viable explosive device.”

 ACC Singleton added, “This further underlines the reckless and callous disregard by those responsible for the safety of the driver, the local community and the police officers who serve them.”

On Sunday evening, a man was forced at gunpoint to drive to a police station in Derry city by a number of armed men who forced the driver to abandon his Ford Mondeo.

The man, who was a delivery driver, told the police that the men had put a “device” in the rear of the car.

This led to a major security alert, causing locals to be evacuated to spend the night at a nearby community centre.

Several roads were cordoned off the next day and a hospital and primary school were closed for safety reasons.

An army technical squad spent hours at the scene on Monday in the Waterside area of Derry and the PSNI’s Derry City & Strabane Area Commander told the BBC’s Derry-based station, Radio Foyle:

“It was a device placed in the car to give the appearance of a bomb or a viable device, in this case it was a petrol can with a pipe attached to it which had the appearance of a bomb to the driver.”

He also referred to it as “an elaborate hoax”.

He added that he believed dissident republicans were likely responsible.

The incident came just days after police said they believed the New IRA could be responsible for an incident in which two officers escaped injury when their car was targeted in a bomb attack in Strabane, Co Tyrone.

Yesterday evening, detectives from the PSNI Terrorism Investigation Unit carried out a search at a property in the Sion Mills area in relation to the Strabane attack.

A number of items were seized and taken away for further forensic examination.

On Monday a UVF member who was also a former British soldier appeared in court charged with having explosives to be used to endanger life or property “in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland”.