13 McCANN AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT reconnaissance and might return for the car. It was for this reason that the decision was taken not to arrest at this point. 46. At 15.00 hours, Mr Colombo rang the Commissioner to inform him that it was more and more likely to be McCann and Farrell. When the Commissioner arrived shortly afterwards, Mr Colombo informed him that the suspects McCann and Farrell had met up with a third person thought to be Savage and that an arrest had almost been made. 47. The Commissioner asked for positive identification of the three suspects. Identification was confirmed by 15.25 hours when it was reported to the operations room that the three suspects had returned to the assembly area and gone past looking at the car again. The three suspects continued north and away from the car. Soldiers E and F recalled that control was passed to the military but immediately taken back as the Commissioner requested further verification of the identities of the suspects. The confirmation of identity which the Commissioner had requested was received almost immediately. 7. Examination of the suspect car in the assembly area 48. After the three suspects’ identities had been confirmed and they had moved away from the assembly area, Soldier G examined the suspect car. He conducted an examination from the exterior without touching the car. He described it as a newish-looking white Renault. He detected nothing untoward inside the car or anything visibly out of place or concealed under the seats. He noted that the aerial of the car, which was rusty, was out of place with the age of the car. He was in the area for less than two minutes. He returned to the operations room and reported to the Commissioner that he regarded the car as a "suspect car bomb". At the inquest, he explained that this was a term of art for a car parked in suspicious circumstances where there is every reason to believe that it is a car bomb and that it could not be said that it was not a car bomb. 49. The Commissioner recalled that G had reported that it was a suspect car bomb since there was an old aerial situated centrally of a relatively new car. He stated that as a result they treated it as a "possible car bomb". 50. Soldier F referred to the aerial as rendering the car suspicious and stated that this information was passed on to all the parties on the ground. 51. Soldier E was more categorical and stated that as far as G could tell "from a cursory visual examination he was able to confirm our suspicion that they were dealing with a car bomb". 52. Soldier A stated that he believed 100 per cent that there was a bomb in the debussing area, that the suspects had remote-control devices and were probably armed. This was what he had been told over the radio. Soldier C recalled that it had been confirmed by Soldier E that there was a device in Ince’s Hall area which could be detonated by one of three suspects who was more likely to be Savage because he had been seen "fiddling" with