🔗 Share this article

Authorities have ruled out initiating a open investigation into the Provisional IRA's 1974 Birmingham bar explosions.

The Devastating Event

Back on 21 November 1974, twenty-one people were murdered and 220 injured when explosive devices were detonated at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town establishments in Birmingham, in an incident commonly accepted to have been carried out by the Provisional IRA.

Legal Consequences

Nobody has been found guilty for the bombings. Back in 1991, 6 men had their guilty verdicts quashed after enduring over 16 years in detention in what remains one of the worst miscarriages of the legal system in United Kingdom history.

Victims' Families Push for Justice

Loved ones have long pushed for a open inquiry into the bombings to discover what the government was aware of at the time of the incident and why no one has been held accountable.

Official Decision

The minister for security, Dan Jarvis, stated on recently that while he had deep empathy for the families, the government had determined “after careful consideration” it would not establish an investigation.

Jarvis explained the authorities believes the reconciliation commission, established to look into deaths related to the Troubles, could investigate the Birmingham incidents.

Campaigners React

Advocate Julie Hambleton, whose teenage sister Maxine was lost her life in the attacks, said the announcement demonstrated “the administration don't care”.

The 62-year-old has for years fought for a open inquiry and explained she and other grieving relatives had “no desire” of taking part in the new body.

“We see no real autonomy in the body,” she stated, explaining it was “tantamount to them grading their own work”.

Calls for Document Disclosure

For decades, grieving families have been calling for the release of papers from security services on the event – particularly on what the authorities was aware of prior to and following the attack, and what evidence there is that could bring about prosecutions.

“The whole state apparatus is resisting our relatives from ever knowing the reality,” she stated. “Only a statutory judicial open probe will give us entry to the documents they claim they lack.”

Official Powers

A official public investigation has distinct judicial powers, including the power to compel participants to testify and reveal details related to the investigation.

Previous Inquest

An investigation in 2019 – campaigned for grieving relatives – concluded the victims were murdered by the Provisional IRA but did not determine the identities of those responsible.

Hambleton commented: “Government bodies informed the presiding official that they have no files or information on what continues to be the UK's most prolonged open atrocity of the 1900s, but at present they want to pressure us to participate of this investigative body to disclose evidence that they assert has not been present”.

Official Response

Liam Byrne, the MP for the Birmingham area, described the administration's ruling as “extremely unsatisfactory”.

In a announcement on Twitter, Byrne wrote: “After such a long time, so much grief, and countless let-downs” the families are entitled to a mechanism that is “impartial, court-supervised, with complete authorities and courageous in the pursuit for the truth.”

Ongoing Grief

Discussing the families' persistent sorrow, Hambleton, who leads the Justice 4 the 21, remarked: “No relative of any atrocity of any type will ever have resolution. It doesn’t exist. The grief and the sorrow remain.”