At 12.58 am, police received an emergency call (which turned out to be from a payphone a few hundred yards away) saying there was a bomb in the park, but that information did not filter down to officers at the park before the bomb went off at 1.27 am.Mr Jewell, who was not injured but said later he had been "blown off my feet", had helped to push revellers back from a grassy area around the knapsack, which turned out to contain a lethal pipe bomb.In the aftermath, the chubby, rosy-cheeked security man with the mousy moustache became a media celebrity, appearing on NBC, CNN and in major newspapers "He looked shy. It was nails, ripping through her head from an explosive-packed pipe, that killedAlice Hawthorne, a mother from Georgia, instantly. A Turkish TV cameraman died of a heart attack as he raced to cover the bomb, only 50 yards from the Olympics' downtown press centre.If charged and convicted, Mr Jewell could face the death penalty. If cleared, as his lawyer Watson Bryant noted yesterday, his life will never be the same If the case is never solved, he will always be ostracised.

Only if another perpetrator is found will his name be cleared; and in that case, he could rightfully reclaim his hero status and, no doubt, cash in on the talk shows, the book, the movie.Richard Jewell, who was out of work shortly before he got a job as a security man guarding the AT&T pavilion at the Centennial Park, first alerted police to a "suspicious" green knapsack at 15 minutes before 1am on Saturday, 27 July. One US TV report said nails and screws of the type packed into the Centennial Park pipe bomb were found in his flat, but that he claimed to have picked them up as souvenirs after the 27 July blast. Although the agency had not charged, or even detained, Mr Jewell by yesterday, and had said "nobody is about to be charged with a crime", FBI agents at first described him as a leading suspect.They continued to search his apartment and country cabin for the third straight day yesterday, removing bags full of material including a rolled- up carpet. He'd watch old movies at home or go out for a couple of beers or a session of laid-back "pick-up" basketball with whomever he could find in his neighbourhood. But was he capable of placing the bomb in Atlanta's Centennial Park that caused two fatalities and wounded more than 100 people? Was his voice that of the "white male with an indistinguishable accent" who placed a warning call before the blast? And do all this so he could find the bomb himself, save some people, make sure he was at a safe distance and get billed as an American hero?The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seems to think so. Like most white men in mainly black Atlanta, Richard Jewell, 33, security guard and former policeman, drove a pick-up truck, collected guns and liked to shoot duck around his cabin on the Chattahoochee River in northern Georgia.

A "regular fella", as one neighbour said, "who would give you the shirt off his back". It extends the 1995 Home Energy Conservation Act - again a genuine Private Member's initiative - to give local authorities duties to create plans to cut fuel consumption by 30 per cent for those living in homes in multiple occupation and on house boats. ANDREW WARRENDirector, Association for the Conservation of EnergyLondon N1. He could pass for the late comedy actor John Candy, the jowly 17-stone guy that always sits next to you at a baseball game, downing burgers and Bud. Sir: Your list of new parliamentary Acts is incomplete (report, 26 July). The 1996 Energy Conservation Bill completed its parliamentary procedure, and awaits royal assent.