Young boy killed in IRA attack while buying a Mother's Day card

Johnathan Ball was the three-year-old victim of the Warrington bombings, an IRA attack that outraged the nation on 20 March 1993.

Twelve-year-old football fan Tim Parry also died as a result of the explosions which ripped through a busy high street.

Fifty-six other people were injured by two blasts within moments of each other just after midday.

It was the day before Mothering Sunday and Johnathan was with his babysitter buying a card for his mum. The babysitter survived but Johnathan died at the scene.

Johnathan’s father, Wilf Ball, said in an interview that 10 years later his grief had still not ended: "It’s hard not to be bitter. They took something away that you were living for. Sometimes I get a good day, sometimes I get a bad day."

In the years after their death the Foundation for Peace was set up in the names of the two young victims and, seven years after the blast, a youth centre was opened in Bridge Street where the bombing took place.

In 2001, Mr Ball, Johnathan’s mother, Marie Comerford, and Tim Parry’s parents met Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, to discuss the Northern Ireland peace process. Mr McGuinness declined to say whether he had apologised to the parents on behalf of the IRA.