One of three men accused of plotting "Real IRA" explosions in London and Birmingham received a text message showing fizzing sticks of dynamite just hours after one of the bombs went off, the Old Bailey was told today.
Prosecutors claimed that Mr Aiden Hulme (26), who denies conspiracy to cause explosions, got the carefully crafted message the day after a car-bomb brought devastation to Ealing, west London, in August 2001.
Mr Orlando Pownall QC, prosecuting, said the message was found on a SIM card discovered in the boot of a blue Volvo.
Mr Hulme's brother, Robert, left the car at a friend's house as he was trying to escape arrest and flee the country in November 2001, Mr Pownall said. When it was searched three months after the Ealing attack, a personal organiser phone and a mobile phone were found.
The organiser had Aiden Hulme's DNA on the keyboard, and when the SIM was removed the messages from three months before were found.
Mr Pownall said: "It depicted, using characters produced by the keyboard, fizzing sticks of dynamite followed by the words 'Up the Provos!'" A further message was received at 12.07 p.m. Both calls were made from a phone in Ireland, he said. Aiden Hulme had been phoned by the same number many times before and after the texts, Mr Pownall said.
"Whoever sent the two messages appears to be inquiring whether Aiden was involved in a bombing the night before.
The inference on any view is that Aiden Hulme was closely associated with the people who were responsible," Mr Pownall said. "These messages cannot simply be dismissed as light-hearted banter from one individual to another in the aftermath of a bombing which devastated Ealing and could so easily have killed members of the public.
"The sender of the text messages clearly believed he was involved."
Mobile phone evidence is also crucial in the case of Mr Noel Maguire (34), who also denies conspiracy to cause explosions.
Mr Pownall said there was "significant contact" between two mobile telephones on the day of the BBC bomb, and that they were alleged to have been in the hands of Mr Maguire and Mr Aiden Hulme.
Cell-site information showed the phone linked to Maguire was in the area of Pegamoid Yard where the bomb car, a taxi, was bought. It was the Crown's case, he said, that Mr Maguire and Mr Hulme were in possession of the phones on that day.
A piece of paper with one of the numbers and the initials BD, Mr Maguire's nickname, had been found in a pub near the yard where the car was bought, he said.
The same number was found in the SIM card memory of a phone recovered from Colindale, north London, where Mr Maguire had leased a house. - (PA)