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Ministers have rejected the idea of establishing a national inquiry into the Provisional IRA's 1974-era Birmingham city pub attacks.

This Horrific Incident

Back on 21 November 1974, 21 people were killed and 220 wounded when explosive devices were detonated at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pub venues in Birmingham, in an attack largely thought to have been orchestrated by the Irish Republican Army.

Legal Fallout

Not a single person has been convicted for the bombings. In 1991, six men had their guilty verdicts quashed after enduring more than 16 years in prison in what is considered one of the worst failures of the legal system in British history.

Relatives Fight for Truth

Loved ones have for decades fought for a public inquiry into the attacks to uncover what the government was aware of at the time of the tragedy and why nobody has been brought to justice.

Official Decision

The security minister, Dan Jarvis, announced on recently that while he had profound empathy for the relatives, the cabinet had decided “after careful review” it would not establish an inquiry.

Jarvis explained the government believes the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, set up to look into fatalities connected to the Northern Ireland conflict, could examine the Birmingham incidents.

Campaigners React

Campaigner Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the bombings, said the decision indicated “the administration are indifferent”.

The 62-year-old has long fought for a open probe and said she and other bereaved relatives had “no intention” of participating in the investigative panel.

“There is no true impartiality in the commission,” she stated, explaining it was “like them marking their own work”.

Calls for Evidence Release

Over the years, bereaved relatives have been demanding the release of files from government bodies on the attack – especially on what the state knew before and after the bombing, and what proof there is that could result in prosecutions.

“The entire state apparatus is against our families from ever knowing the facts,” she declared. “Only a legally mandated judge-led open inquiry will give us entry to the documents they state they don’t have.”

Legal Powers

A statutory national investigation has specific judicial powers, such as the power to require individuals to testify and reveal evidence connected to the inquiry.

Prior Hearing

An investigation in 2019 – fought for grieving relatives – ruled the victims were murdered by the Provisional IRA but did not establish the identities of those responsible.

Hambleton stated: “The security services advised the then coroner that they have no records or information on what remains England’s longest unsolved mass murder of the 1900s, but currently they aim to push us to participate of this investigative body to provide information that they state has never existed”.

Official Criticism

Liam Byrne, the MP for the Birmingham area, characterized the government’s decision as “profoundly disheartening”.

In a message on Twitter, Byrne said: “After such a long period, so much pain, and countless disappointments” the families are entitled to a mechanism that is “independent, judicially directed, with full authorities and fearless in the pursuit for the truth.”

Ongoing Grief

Discussing the family’s enduring sorrow, Hambleton, who chairs the advocacy organization, said: “Not a single family of any atrocity of any sort will ever have peace. It is unattainable. The grief and the anguish persist.”