🔗 Share this article

Government officials have ruled out establishing a public investigation into the IRA's 1974-era Birmingham bar explosions.

This Horrific Event

On 21 November 1974, 21 civilians were lost their lives and 220 hurt when bombs were set off at the Mulberry Bush pub and Tavern in the Town pub venues in Birmingham, in an incident commonly accepted to have been planned by the IRA.

Legal Fallout

No one has been found guilty for the attacks. In 1991, 6 individuals had their sentences reversed after serving more than 16 years in prison in what is considered one of the gravest failures of the legal system in UK history.

Families Campaign for Truth

Loved ones have long pushed for a public inquiry into the bombings to discover what the government was aware of at the moment of the event and why nobody has been prosecuted.

Government Statement

The minister for security, Dan Jarvis, said on recently that while he had profound compassion for the families, the government had determined “after careful consideration” it would not establish an probe.

Jarvis explained the government believes the reconciliation commission, set up to investigate deaths connected to the Troubles, could investigate the Birmingham incidents.

Activists React

Campaigner Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the explosions, said the statement showed “the authorities don't care”.

The sixty-two-year-old has for decades fought for a public investigation and stated she and other bereaved relatives had “no intention” of engaging in the new body.

“There is no genuine impartiality in the commission,” she remarked, noting it was “like them marking their own work”.

Demands for Document Disclosure

For years, bereaved loved ones have been requesting the release of papers from intelligence agencies on the incident – particularly on what the government was aware of before and after the attack, and what proof there is that could bring about arrests.

“The entire state apparatus is against our families from ever learning the reality,” she stated. “Only a legally mandated judge-led national inquiry will give us access to the documents they assert they do not possess.”

Official Powers

A official national inquiry has specific official capabilities, such as the authority to oblige witnesses to attend and disclose information associated with the inquiry.

Earlier Inquest

An investigation in 2019 – secured by grieving families – concluded the those killed were murdered by the IRA but failed to identify the identities of those culpable.

Hambleton said: “Government bodies told the presiding official that they have absolutely no records or evidence on what is still Britain's most prolonged unsolved atrocity of the 20th century, but at present they intend to pressure us down the route of this new commission to share evidence that they assert has not been present”.

Political Response

Liam Byrne, the Member of Parliament for the Birmingham area, described the government’s announcement as “extremely unsatisfactory”.

Through a message on Twitter, Byrne stated: “Following such a long period, so much pain, and so many let-downs” the families are entitled to a process that is “autonomous, judicially directed, with complete capabilities and unafraid in the search for the reality.”

Enduring Pain

Discussing the family’s enduring pain, Hambleton, who heads the campaign group, remarked: “No family of any tragedy of any kind will ever have peace. It is unattainable. The pain and the grief continue.”