🔗 Share this article

Government officials have ruled out establishing a public investigation into the IRA's 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

This Tragic Incident

Back on 21 November 1974, 21 individuals were lost their lives and 220 injured when explosive devices were detonated at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town establishments in Birmingham, in an incident largely thought to have been planned by the Provisional IRA.

Legal Fallout

No one has been found guilty for the attacks. In 1991, 6 defendants had their sentences overturned after enduring more than 16 years in detention in what is considered one of the most severe failures of the legal system in British history.

Victims' Families Fight for Answers

Relatives have for decades pushed for a national probe into the attacks to find out what the government knew at the time of the event and why nobody has been prosecuted.

Government Decision

The security minister, Dan Jarvis, stated on Thursday that while he had deep sympathy for the loved ones, the cabinet had concluded “after careful deliberation” it would not establish an investigation.

Jarvis stated the government believes the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, created to examine fatalities associated with the Northern Ireland conflict, could investigate the Birmingham incidents.

Advocates Express Disappointment

Advocate Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the bombings, stated the statement demonstrated “the administration are indifferent”.

The sixty-two-year-old has for years campaigned for a national inquiry and stated she and other bereaved relatives had “no intention” of participating in the investigative panel.

“There is no true impartiality in the panel,” she stated, noting it was “tantamount to them grading their own work”.

Requests for Document Release

Over the years, grieving families have been requesting the release of documents from government bodies on the attack – particularly on what the government was aware of before and following the incident, and what evidence there is that could lead to prosecutions.

“The whole state apparatus is against our relatives from ever knowing the reality,” she stated. “Exclusively a legally mandated judicial national investigation will provide us entry to the documents they assert they lack.”

Legal Powers

A statutory open probe has particular judicial powers, such as the authority to require participants to appear and provide details associated with the inquiry.

Earlier Hearing

An investigation in 2019 – secured by grieving families – determined the those killed were murdered by the IRA but did not determine the names of those culpable.

Hambleton stated: “Government bodies told the then coroner that they have zero records or information on what remains England’s most prolonged unresolved multiple killing of the 20th century, but currently they aim to push us down the route of this investigative body to share details that they claim has never existed”.

Official Reaction

Liam Byrne, the MP for the local constituency, described the government’s ruling as “profoundly disappointing”.

Through a announcement on Twitter, Byrne stated: “After so much period, such immense pain, and countless failures” the relatives deserve a process that is “impartial, court-supervised, with comprehensive powers and unafraid in the quest for the truth.”

Enduring Pain

Speaking of the families' ongoing pain, Hambleton, who leads the Justice 4 the 21, said: “Not a single family of any tragedy of any type will ever have resolution. It doesn’t exist. The suffering and the anguish remain.”