The Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two
public houses
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
, England, killing 21 people and injuring 182 others.
The
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
never officially admitted responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings,
although a former senior officer of the organisation confessed to their involvement in 2014. In 2017, one of the
alleged perpetrators, Michael Hayes, also claimed that the intention of the bombings had not been to harm civilians, and that their deaths had been caused by an unintentional delay in delivering an advance telephone warning to security services.
Six Irishmen were arrested within hours of the blasts, and in 1975 sentenced to
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
for the bombings. The men—who became known as the
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six Irishmen who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the C ...
—maintained their innocence and insisted police had coerced them into signing
false confession
A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...
s through severe
physical
Physical may refer to:
* Physical examination, a regular overall check-up with a doctor
* ''Physical'' (Olivia Newton-John album), 1981
** "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John song)
* ''Physical'' (Gabe Gurnsey album)
* "Physical" (Alcazar song) (2004)
* ...
and
psychological abuse
Psychological abuse, often called emotional abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another person to a behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumat ...
. After 16 years in prison, and a lengthy campaign, their
conviction
In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of " not proven", which is cons ...
s were declared
unsafe and unsatisfactory, and quashed by the
Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much ...
in 1991. The episode is seen as one of the worst
miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
The Birmingham pub bombings were one of the deadliest acts of
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
, and the deadliest act of
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
to occur in England between the Second World War and the
2005 London bombings.
Background
In 1973, the Provisional IRA extended its campaign to mainland Britain, attacking military and symbolically important targets to both increase pressure on the
British government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_est ...
, via popular British opinion,
[''Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA'' p. 169] to withdraw from
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
, and to maintain morale amongst their supporters. By 1974, mainland Britain saw an average of one attack—successful or otherwise—every three days. These attacks included five explosions which had occurred in Birmingham on 14 July, one of which had occurred at the
Rotunda. Prior to any attack upon civilian targets, a
code of conduct
A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization.
Companies' codes of conduct
A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...
was followed in which the attacker or attackers would send an anonymous telephone warning to police, with the caller reciting a confidential
code word
In communication, a code word is an element of a standardized code or protocol. Each code word is assembled in accordance with the specific rules of the code and assigned a unique meaning. Code words are typically used for reasons of reliability, ...
known only to the Provisional IRA and to police, to indicate the authenticity of the threat.
On 14 November, James McDade, a 28-year-old UK-based member of the Provisional IRA, was killed in a premature explosion as he attempted to plant a bomb at a telephone exchange and postal sorting office in
Coventry
Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...
. Another man, Raymond McLaughlin, was arrested near the scene; he was charged with unlawfully killing McDade and causing an explosion. The
republican movement in England had planned to bury McDade in Birmingham, with a paramilitary
guard of honour
A guard of honour ( GB), also honor guard ( US), also ceremonial guard, is a group of people, usually military in nature, appointed to receive or guard a head of state or other dignitaries, the fallen in war, or to attend at state ceremonials, ...
.
[''Lost Lives'' p. 494] These plans were altered after the
British Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
vowed that such a funeral, and any associated sympathy marches, would be prevented.
Councils in the
West Midlands chose to ban any processions linked to the death of McDade under the
Public Order Act 1936
The Public Order Act 1936 (1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6 c. 6) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed to control extremist political movements in the 1930s such as the British Union of Fascists (BUF).
Largely the work of Home Office ci ...
.
McDade's body was driven to
Birmingham Airport
Birmingham Airport , formerly ''Birmingham International Airport'', is an international airport located east-southeast of Birmingham city centre, west-northwest of Coventry slightly north of Bickenhill village, in the Metropolitan Borou ...
and flown to Ireland on the afternoon of 21 November 1974. Initially, his body had been scheduled to be flown to
Belfast Airport Belfast Airport may refer to:
* Belfast International Airport, serving Belfast, Northern Ireland, an international leisure airport
* George Best Belfast City Airport
George Best Belfast City Airport is a single-runway airport in Belfast, No ...
; however, upon learning that staff at the airport had refused to handle the coffin, McDade's body was instead flown to
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
. All police leave was cancelled on this date, with an extra 1,300 officers drafted into Birmingham to quell any unrest as the hearse carrying McDade's coffin was driven to the airport. McDade's body was buried in
Milltown Cemetery
Milltown Cemetery ( ga, Reilig Bhaile an Mhuilinn) is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland. It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway.
History
Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 as part ...
in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
on 23 November. According to a senior Provisional IRA figure, tensions within the Birmingham IRA unit were "running high" over the disrupted funeral arrangements for James McDade.
The bombings
In the early evening hours of 21 November, at least three bombs connected to timing devices were planted inside two separate public houses and outside a bank located in and around
central Birmingham. It is unknown precisely when these bombs were planted; if official IRA protocol of preceding attacks upon non-military installations with a 30-minute advance warning to security services was followed, and subsequent
eyewitness accounts are accurate,
[''Error of Judgement'' p. 5] the bombs would have been planted at these locations after 19:30 and before 19:47.
According to testimony delivered at the 1975 trial of the six men wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings, the bomb planted inside the ''Mulberry Bush'' was concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase, whereas the bomb planted inside the ''Tavern in the Town'' was concealed inside a briefcase or duffel bag (possibly concealed within a large, sealed plastic bag) and Christmas cracker boxes.
[ ''Error of Judgement'' p. 4] The remnants of two alarm clocks recovered from the site of each explosion leaves the possibility that two bombs had been planted at each public house; the
explosion crater
An explosion crater is a type of crater formed when material is ejected from the surface of the ground by an explosive event at or immediately above or below the surface.
A crater is formed by an explosive event through the displacement and eject ...
at each location indicates that if two bombs had been planted at each public house, they would each have been placed in the same location and likely the same container.
[ ''Error of Judgement'' p. 2]
Reportedly, those who planted these bombs then walked to a preselected phone box to telephone the advance warning to security services; however, the phone box had been vandalised, forcing the caller to find an alternative phone box and thus shortening the amount of time police had to clear the locations.
![New Street -Birmingham -England](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/New_Street_-Birmingham_-England.jpg)
At 20:11, an unknown man with a distinct
Irish accent telephoned the ''
Birmingham Post
The ''Birmingham Post'' is a weekly printed newspaper based in Birmingham, England, with a circulation of 2,545 and distribution throughout the West Midlands. First published under the name the ''Birmingham Daily Post'' in 1857, it has had a s ...
'' newspaper. The call was answered by an operator named Ian Cropper. This caller said: "There is a bomb planted in the Rotunda and there is a bomb in
New Street at the tax office. This is Double X", before terminating the call. ("Double X" was an IRA code word given to authenticate any warning call.) A similar warning was also sent to the ''
Birmingham Evening Mail
The ''Birmingham Mail'' (branded the ''Black Country Mail'' in the Black Country) is a tabloid newspaper based in Birmingham, England but distributed around Birmingham, the Black Country, and Solihull and parts of Warwickshire, Worcestershire a ...
'' newspaper, with the anonymous caller(s) again giving the code word, but again failing to name the public houses in which the bombs had been planted.
Mulberry Bush
The Rotunda is a 25-storey office block that housed the ''Mulberry Bush'' pub on its lower two floors.
[McKittrick, David. ''Lost Lives'' pp. 497–98] Within minutes of the warning, police arrived and began checking the upper floors of the Rotunda, but they did not have sufficient time to clear the crowded pub at street level. At 20:17, six minutes after the first telephone warning had been delivered to the ''Birmingham Post'', the bomb—which had been concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase located close to the rear entrance to the premises—exploded, devastating the pub. The explosion blew a 40-inch (100 cm) crater in the concrete floor, collapsing part of the roof and trapping many casualties beneath girders and concrete blocks. Many buildings near the Rotunda were also damaged, and passersby in the street were struck by flying glass from shattered windows. Several of the fatalities were killed outright, including two youths who had been walking past the premises at the moment of the explosion.
Ten people were killed in this explosion and dozens were injured, including many who lost
limbs. Several casualties had been impaled by sections of wooden furniture; others had their clothes burned from their bodies. A paramedic called to the scene of this explosion later described the carnage as being reminiscent of a slaughterhouse; one fireman said that, upon seeing a writhing, "screaming torso", he had begged police to allow a television crew inside the premises to film the dead and dying at the scene, in the hope the IRA would see the consequences of their actions; however, the police refused this request, fearing the reprisals would be extreme.
[''Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979'' p. 168]
One of those injured was a 21-year-old woman named Maureen Carlin, who had such extensive
shrapnel wounds to her stomach and bowel she told her fiancé, Ian Lord (himself badly wounded in the explosion): "If I die, just remember I love you".
Carlin was given the
last rites
The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortall ...
, with surgeons initially doubtful she would live, although she recovered from her injuries.
Tavern in the Town
The ''Tavern in the Town'' was a basement pub on New Street located a short distance from the Rotunda and directly beneath the New Street Tax Office.
Patrons there had heard the explosion at the ''Mulberry Bush'', but did not believe that the sound (described by one survivor as a "muffled thump") was an explosion.
Police had begun attempting to clear the ''Tavern in the Town'' when, at 20:27, a second bomb exploded there. The blast was so powerful that several victims were blown through a brick wall. Their remains were wedged between the rubble and live underground electric cables that supplied the city centre.
[''The Birmingham Pub Bombings, 21 November 1974. A Personal Account by Alan Stuart Hill](_blank)
One of the first police officers on the scene, Brian Yates, later testified that the scene which greeted his eyes was "absolutely dreadful", with several of the dead stacked upon one another, others strewn about the ruined pub,
and several screaming survivors staggering aimlessly amongst the debris, rubble,
and severed limbs. A survivor said the sound of the explosion was replaced by a "deafening silence" and the smell of burnt flesh.
Rescue efforts at the ''Tavern in the Town'' were initially hampered as the bomb had been placed at the base of a set of stairs descending from the street which had been destroyed in the explosion,
and the premises had been accessible solely via this entrance. The victims whose bodies had been blown through a brick wall and wedged between the rubble and underground electric cables took up to three hours to recover, as recovery operations were delayed until the power could be
isolated
Isolation is the near or complete lack of social contact by an individual.
Isolation or isolated may also refer to:
Sociology and psychology
*Isolation (health care), various measures taken to prevent contagious diseases from being spread
**Is ...
.
A passing West Midlands bus was also destroyed in the blast.
This bomb killed nine people outright, and injured everyone in the pub—many severely; two later died of their injuries: 28-year-old barman Thomas Chaytor on 28 November, and 34-year-old James Craig on 10 December.
After the second explosion, police
evacuated all pubs and businesses in Birmingham city centre and commandeered all available rooms in the nearby City Centre Hotel as an impromptu first-aid post.
All bus services into the city centre were halted, and taxi drivers were encouraged to transport those lightly injured in the explosions to hospital.
Prior to the arrival of ambulances, rescue workers removed critically injured casualties from each scene upon makeshift stretchers constructed from devices such as tabletops and wooden planks. These severely injured casualties would be placed on the pavement and given
first aid
First aid is the first and immediate assistance given to any person with either a minor or serious illness or injury, with care provided to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, or to promote recovery. It includes initial i ...
prior to the arrival of ambulance services.
Hagley Road
At 21:15, a third bomb, concealed inside two plastic bags, was found in the doorway of a Barclays Bank on Hagley Road, approximately two miles from the site of the first two explosions. This device consisted of
of
Frangex connected to a
timer
A timer is a specialized type of clock used for measuring specific time intervals.
Timers can be categorized into two main types.
The word "timer" is usually reserved for devices that counts down from a specified time interval, while devices th ...
, and was set to detonate at 23:00. The
detonator
A detonator, frequently a blasting cap, is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Detonators can be chemically, mechanically, or electrically initiated, the last two being the most common.
The commercial use of explosives uses electr ...
to this device activated when a policeman prodded the bags with his truncheon, but the bomb did not explode. The device was destroyed in a
controlled explosion
A controlled explosion is a method for detonating or disabling a suspected explosive device.
Methods which are used to set off a controlled explosion include clearing the area and using a bomb disposal robot to attach a shaped charge to the susp ...
early the following morning.
Fatalities
Altogether, 21 people were killed and 182 injured in the Birmingham pub bombings, making them the deadliest terrorist attack in mainland Britain during the Troubles.
Residents of Birmingham have referred to the Birmingham pub bombings as the "darkest day" in their city's history.
Many of those wounded were left permanently disabled, including one young man who lost both legs, and a young woman who was blinded by shrapnel. The majority of the dead and wounded were between the ages of 17 and 30, including a young couple on their first date, a young woman whose boyfriend had intended to propose to her on the evening of her death, and two Irishmen, brothers Desmond and Eugene Reilly (aged 21 and 23 respectively). The widow of Desmond Reilly gave birth to his first child four months after his death.
[McKittrick, David. ''Lost Lives'' p. 500] One of the victims, 18-year-old Maxine Hambleton, had only entered the ''Tavern in the Town'' to hand out tickets to friends for her housewarming party. She was killed seconds after entering the pub and had been standing directly beside the bomb when it exploded, killing her instantly. Her friend, 17-year-old Jane Davis, was one of two 17-year-olds killed in the bombings, and had entered the ''Tavern in the Town'' to view holiday photographs she had developed that afternoon.
Initial reaction
The bombings stoked considerable
anti-Irish sentiment
Anti-Irish sentiment includes oppression, persecution, discrimination, or hatred of Irish people as an ethnic group or a nation. It can be directed against the island of Ireland in general, or directed against Irish emigrants and their descendan ...
in Birmingham, which then had an
Irish community of 100,000. Irish people were ostracised from public places and subjected to physical assaults,
verbal abuse and death threats. Both in Birmingham and across England,
Irish homes, pubs, businesses and community centres were attacked, in some cases with firebombs. Staff at thirty factories across
the Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the In ...
went on strike in protest at the bombings, while workers at airports across England refused to handle flights bound for Ireland.
Bridget Reilly, the mother of the two Irish brothers killed in the ''Tavern in the Town'' explosion, was herself refused service in local shops.
The bombings were immediately blamed on the IRA,
despite the organisation not having claimed responsibility.
Due to anger against Irish people in Birmingham after the bombings, the IRA's Army Council placed the city "strictly off-limits" to IRA
active service unit
An active service unit (ASU; ) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) cell of four to ten members, tasked with carrying out armed attacks. In 2002, the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units.
T ...
s. In Northern Ireland,
loyalist paramilitaries
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a uni ...
launched a wave of revenge attacks on
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
s: within two days of the bombings, five Catholic civilians had been shot dead by
loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
.
First IRA statement
Two days after the bombings, the Provisional IRA issued a statement in which they denied any responsibility. This statement stressed that a detailed internal investigation was underway to determine the possibility of any rogue members' involvement,
although the Provisional IRA emphasised that the
methodology
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...
of the attacks contradicted the official IRA code of conduct when attacking non-military targets, whereby adequate warnings would be sent to security services to ensure the safety of civilians.
[White, Robert W. ''Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary'' pp. 221; 381.] Ruairí Ó Brádaigh
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (; born Peter Roger Casement Brady; 2 October 1932 – 5 June 2013) was an Irish republican political and military leader. He was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1958 to 1959 and again from 1960 to ...
, then-president of Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gr ...
, conducted an internal investigation which he stated confirmed the bombings had not been sanctioned by the IRA leadership.[
The Provisional IRA never officially admitted responsibility for the Birmingham pub bombings.
]
Prevention of Terrorism Act
Within four days of the bombings, Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, (11 November 1920 – 5 January 2003) was a British politician who served as President of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981. At various times a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lab ...
, the Home Secretary, announced that the Irish Republican Army was to be proscribed
Proscription ( la, proscriptio) is, in current usage, a 'decree of condemnation to death or banishment' ('' Oxford English Dictionary'') and can be used in a political context to refer to state-approved murder or banishment. The term originate ...
within the UK. Two days later, on 27 November, Jenkins introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, which granted the police in mainland Britain the right to arrest, detain, and question people for up to seven days if they were suspected of the commission or preparation of an act of terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
on the British mainland, and their subsequent deportation
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...
to either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. ...
if culpability was proven. Jenkins later described the measures of this Act as being "draconian measures unprecedented in peacetime".[
In response to public pressure, a separate debate within the ]House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
as to whether those convicted of terrorist offences should face the death penalty was held on 11 December 1974. This motion drew the support of more than 200 MPs, although the majority of those in Parliament voted against the restoration of the death penalty, reportedly in part due to fear that such a move could have encouraged the IRA to use children to plant bombs.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act became law on 29 November,[ and remained in force until superseded by the Terrorism Act in July 2000.]
Forensic analysis
An analysis of the remnants of the bombs placed at the ''Mulberry Bush'' and the ''Tavern in the Town'' revealed these devices had been constructed in a similar manner to the bomb placed at Hagley Road. Each bomb placed inside the public houses would have weighed between 25 and 30 lbs, and had contained numerous shards of metal. The forensic analyst was able to state that the construction of these devices was very similar to that of seven other bombs and incendiary device
Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, ...
s discovered at various locations in Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...
in the 16 days prior to the Birmingham pub bombings, and that the explosive material used to construct the bomb discovered at Hagley Road was of a brand solely manufactured in the Republic of Ireland which could not legally be imported into Britain. All these factors led the explosives expert to conclude that all three bombs had been manufactured by the same people, and that it was likely that whoever had constructed these bombs had also committed previous IRA attacks. This conclusion was further supported by the methodology of the attacks, and the official IRA code word given to the ''Birmingham Evening Mail'' and ''Birmingham Post'' newspapers minutes before the explosions.
The Birmingham Six
Arrest
At 19:55 on 21 November (scarcely 20 minutes before the first bomb had exploded), five men—Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—had boarded a train at Birmingham New Street station
Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main railway stations in Birmingham city centre, England, and a central hub of the British railway system. It is a major destination for Avanti West Coast services from , and v ...
. These men—who, alongside Hugh Callaghan, would become known as the "Birmingham Six"—were originally from Northern Ireland. Five of the Birmingham Six hailed from Belfast, whereas John Walker had lived in Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...
until age 16. All six men had lived in Birmingham for between 11 and 27 years respectively and, although they had known James McDade and/or his family to varying degrees, each man was adamant they had not known of his IRA affiliations.
When the bombs exploded, the booking clerk from whom the men had purchased tickets informed police that a man with an Irish accent, dressed in a dust-covered purple suit, had purchased a ticket to travel to the coastal village of Heysham, en route to Belfast. The man had then run onto the train. A spot check on ticket sales that evening revealed that four further tickets to travel to Belfast via Heysham had also been issued. Within three hours of the bombings, each man had been detained at Heysham Port
Heysham Port is the port of Heysham, Lancashire, England. It is served by Heysham Port railway station.
History
In 1891, the Midland Railway
The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was ...
and taken to Morecambe
Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea.
Name
The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), ...
police station to undergo forensic tests to eliminate them as suspects in the bombings. Each man expressed their willingness to assist in these inquiries, having informed the officers of a half-truth
A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true, but only part of the whole truth, or it may use some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, ...
as to the reason they had been travelling to Belfast: that they intended to visit their families, although they also intended to attend McDade's funeral.
Between 03:00 and 06:10 the following morning, forensic scientist
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal ...
Frank Skuse Frank Skuse (born ca. 1934) is a British former forensic scientist for the North West Forensic Laboratories based in Chorley, Lancashire. His flawed conclusions, eventually discredited, contributed to the convictions of Judith Ward and the Birmingha ...
[''Error of Judgement'' p. 35] conducted a series of Griess test
The Griess test is an analytical chemistry test which detects the presence of nitrite ion in solution. One of its most important uses is the determination of nitrite in drinking water. The Griess diazotization reaction, on which the Griess reagen ...
s upon the hands, fingernails and belongings of the five men arrested at Heysham Port, to determine whether any of the men had handled the explosive nitroglycerine
Nitroglycerin (NG), (alternative spelling of nitroglycerine) also known as trinitroglycerin (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating ...
. He concluded with a 99% degree of certainty that both Patrick Hill and William Power had handled explosives, and remained uncertain as to the test results conducted on John Walker, whose right hand had tested positive, but whose left hand had tested negative.[ ''Error of Judgement'' p. 165] The test results upon Hunter and McIlkenny had been negative.
Each man was ordered to change his clothes. A search of Walker's possessions revealed several mass cards printed in reference to the upcoming funeral of James McDade.[ ''Error of Judgement'' p. 59] Upon discovering these mass cards, two officers led Walker into an adjacent room, where he was repeatedly punched, kicked and, later, burned with a lit cigarette by three officers as his arms were restrained by the two policemen who had escorted him into the room. Similar assaults were committed upon Power, Hunter, Hill and, to a lesser degree, McIlkenny; the officers who administered these beatings took great care to avoid marking the men's faces.
At 12:55 on the afternoon of 22 November, while detained at Morecambe police station, William Power signed a confession admitting his involvement in the Birmingham pub bombings. This confession was extracted after Power had been subjected to extreme physical and psychological abuse, which included repeated kicking in the stomach, head and legs, dragging by the hair, and the stretching of his scrotum.
False confessions
The five men were transferred to the custody of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad
The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was a police unit in the English West Midlands which operated from 1974 to 1989. It was disbanded after an investigation into allegations of incompetence and abuse of power on the part of some of the squad ...
on the afternoon of 22 November. At 22:45 that evening, Hugh Callaghan was arrested at his home in Birmingham and driven to Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton ( ), is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles sou ...
police station, where he was briefly questioned before being detained in a cell overnight, but intentionally denied sleep. The same evening Callaghan was arrested, the homes of all six men were extensively—and unsuccessfully—searched for explosives and explosive material.
Following their transfer to the custody of the West Midlands Crime Squad, three other members of the Birmingham Six (Callaghan, McIlkenny and Walker) signed false confessions on 23 November. In these three further false statements obtained by the West Midlands Crime Squad, Callaghan, McIlkenny and Walker each falsely claimed to be members of the IRA; to have conspired with McDade to cause explosions prior to his death; and to have planted the bombs at the ''Mulberry Bush'' and the ''Tavern in the Town'' public houses. As had been the case with William Power while detained at Morecambe police station, the three men later claimed that, before and during their transfer to Birmingham, officers had coerced them into signing these confessions through severe physical, psychological and emotional abuse. This mistreatment included beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, being subject to mock executions, intimidation, being burned with lit cigarettes, and being forced to stand or squat in various stress positions. In addition, each man had heard threats directed against their families.[Denis Faul & Raymond Murray (1976]
Extract from ''The Birmingham Framework''
cain.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 21 June 2017. Hill and Hunter both claimed they had been subject to the same mistreatment, and although both men had refused to sign false confessions, police later claimed that both men had verbally confessed their guilt. On 24 November, each man was initially charged with the murder of 17-year-old Jane Davis, who had been killed in the ''Tavern in the Town'' explosion. All six were remanded in custody at Winson Green Prison
HM Prison Birmingham is a Category B men's prison, located in the Winson Green area of Birmingham, England. The prison was operated by G4S from 2011, before it was returned to HM Prison and Probation Service in August 2018. The government take ...
, and they were only assigned solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
s the following day.
Inside Winson Green Prison, all six men were subject to the same mistreatment at the hands of prison officers as they had endured at the hands of police, with one of the men losing four teeth in one assault. At a further court hearing on 28 November, each man was observed to have extensive facial injuries; an examination by a prison doctor revealed each man had received extensive injuries not only to their faces, but across their bodies. (Following an independent investigation into this mistreatment, the British Director of Public Prosecutions
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the office or official charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. The title is used mainly in jurisdictions that are or have been members o ...
recommended that 14 prison warders be charged with assault. These men were suspended from duty in December 1975; all 14 were found not guilty of 90 separate charges of misconduct and assault on 15 July 1976.)
Second IRA statement
Dáithí Ó Conaill
Dáithí Ó Conaill (English: ''David O'Connell'') (May 1938 – 1 January 1991) was an Irish republican, a member of the IRA Army Council of the Provisional IRA, and vice-president of Sinn Féin and Republican Sinn Féin. He was also the first ...
, then a member of the Provisional IRA's Army Council, had four days before the Birmingham pub bombings issued a statement declaring that the "consequences of war" would incessantly be felt not only in Northern Ireland, but on the British mainland, until the British government announced their intentions to "disengage from Ireland". One week after the Birmingham Six had been charged with the murder of Jane Davis, Ó Conaill issued a further statement emphasising that none of the Birmingham Six had ever been members of the IRA. Ó Conaill further stated:
Committal hearing
At a committal hearing in May 1975, each man was formally charged with 21 counts of murder, with additional charges of conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agr ...
to cause explosions. Due to the wave of public outrage towards the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings within the Midlands, Judge Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
conceded to defence motions to move the trial away from the Midlands, and the trial was set to be heard within the Shire Hall and Crown Court
The Crown Court is the court of first instance of England and Wales responsible for hearing all Indictable offence, indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals lied to it by the Magistrates' court, magistrates' court ...
of Lancaster Castle
Lancaster Castle is a medieval castle and former prison in Lancaster in the English county of Lancashire. Its early history is unclear, but it may have been founded in the 11th century on the site of a Roman fort overlooking a crossing of ...
[ ''Error of Judgement'' p. 156] the following month. Also to stand trial with the Birmingham Six were three men: Mick Murray (a known member of the Provisional IRA who had previously been convicted of a separate charge of conspiracy to cause explosions), James Francis Gavin (a.k.a. James Kelly, who had likewise been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives), who had allegedly constructed each of the bombs, and Michael Sheehan. Murray was also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions across the Midlands, with Kelly and Sheehan charged with possession of explosives.
Prior to the trial, defence lawyers for the Birmingham Six applied for their clients to be tried separately from Sheehan, Kelly and, particularly, Murray, stating that their clients' presumptions of innocence and denials of association with the IRA would be tainted if they were tried alongside an admitted member of the Provisional IRA, who had been convicted of causing explosions. This application was rejected by Judge Bridge, who was to preside over the trial.[''Error of Judgement'' p. 159]
Trial
On 9 June 1975, the Birmingham Six stood trial at Lancaster Crown Court before Judge Nigel Bridge. Each man was charged with 21 counts of murder and conspiring with the deceased James McDade to cause explosions across the Midlands between August and November 1974. Murray, Kelly and Sheehan were also charged with conspiracy to cause explosions across the Midlands, with Kelly and Sheehan facing the additional charges of possession of explosives.
All six men emphatically maintained their innocence, stating they had never been members of the IRA; that they had not known James McDade had been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army until his death; and reiterating their earlier claims of having been subject to intense physical and psychological abuse upon their arrest. Sheehan and Kelly also denied the charges brought against them, with Murray simply refusing to acknowledge or speak throughout the entire proceedings. (No direct evidence was offered to link Murray, Sheehan or Kelly with the Birmingham pub bombings. Nonetheless, the Crown
The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...
alleged
In law, an allegation is a claim of an unproven fact by a party in a pleading, charge, or defense. Until they can be proved, allegations remain merely assertions. they were part of the same IRA unit as the Birmingham Six, and contended the Birmingham pub bombs may have been planted "in some illogical way" to avenge or commemorate the death of James McDade.)
The primary evidence presented against the Birmingham Six linking them to the Birmingham pub bombings were their written confessions, the Griess tests conducted by Frank Skuse at Morecambe police station, and circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need ...
indicative of Irish republican
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The develop ...
sympathies which would be supported by character witnesses called to testify on behalf of the prosecution.
Skuse testified as to his conducting Griess tests upon the hands of the six men following their arrest, stating as to his being 99% certain that both Hill and Power had handled explosive materials, and to a possibility Walker may also have done so. Skuse conceded that he could not rule out the possibility that Walker's right hand could have been contaminated from his (Skuse's) own hands, as Walker was the last of the five men to be swabbed at Morecambe police station, and had at first tested negative to the Griess test, before a second swab had revealed faint, positive traces of ammonium
The ammonium cation is a positively-charged polyatomic ion with the chemical formula or . It is formed by the protonation of ammonia (). Ammonium is also a general name for positively charged or protonated substituted amines and quaternary a ...
and nitrate
Nitrate is a polyatomic ion
A polyatomic ion, also known as a molecular ion, is a covalent bonded set of two or more atoms, or of a metal complex, that can be considered to behave as a single unit and that has a net charge that is not zer ...
s. This testimony was refuted by Dr. Hugh Kenneth Black, a former Chief Inspector of Explosives for the Home Office, who testified that a range of innocuous substances and objects one could handle on a daily basis containing nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
(such as varnishes and paints) would produce a positive result to a Griess test. Moreover, the tests conducted by Skuse had not succeeded in identifying nitroglycerine as the source of the positive results produced by the Griess tests, and the Crown had earlier conceded that an exhaustive search of the six men's homes had revealed no traces of nitroglycerine.
Several weeks into the trial, Judge Bridge overruled motions from the defence counsel that the four written confessions obtained from their clients should be omitted from evidence due to their being extorted under extreme physical and mental pressure, instead citing the statements as admissible evidence
Admissible evidence, in a court of law, is any testimonial, documentary, or tangible evidence that may be introduced to a factfinder—usually a judge or jury—to establish or to bolster a point put forth by a party to the proceeding. Fo ...
. These written confessions were presented in evidence at the trial following an eight-day hearing conducted without the presence of the jury. The judge refused to allow the jury to view the written confessions, which would have disclosed not only that each of the four written confessions contradicted details contained within the three other confessions, but that they also contradicted testimony from forensic scientists delivered earlier in the trial as to the devices used to conceal the bombs, and the locations in which they had been placed inside the public houses. For example, William Power had claimed in his written confession that he had placed the bomb which devastated the ''Mulberry Bush'' public house by a jukebox at the foot of a staircase to the premises; whereas a forensic scientist named Douglas Higgs had testified on the fourth day of the trial that the bomb which had detonated within these premises had been left by a wall located towards the rear of the premises.
Conviction
The trial lasted 45 days, and saw one hundred witnesses testify on behalf of the prosecution and defence. On 14 August 1975, the jury retired to consider their verdicts. These deliberations continued until the following day. On the afternoon of 15 August, having deliberated for over six-and-a-half hours, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts in relation to the 21 murder charges against the Birmingham Six. Upon passing sentence, Judge Nigel Bridge informed the defendants: "You stand convicted of each of 21 counts, on the clearest and most overwhelming evidence I have ever heard, of the crime of murder." All six men were sentenced to life imprisonment. None of the Birmingham Six displayed any emotion upon hearing the verdict, although William Power saluted the judge.
At the same trial, Michael Murray and Michael Sheehan were each convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. James Kelly was found not guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions, but guilty of the possession of explosives and sentenced to one year's imprisonment; his counsel, Edwin Jowett, successfully argued that his client had already served the equivalent of a one-year sentence, and he was released from prison on 23 August.
After sentencing all nine defendants, Judge Bridge summoned the Chief Constable of Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
and the Assistant Chief Constable of the West Midlands to hear a final address; both were commended for their collective efforts in interrogating and obtaining the four confessions presented in evidence. In addressing the defendants' assertions as to physical and psychological abuse while in the custody of both constabularies, Judge Bridge concluded: "These investigations both at Morecambe and Birmingham were carried out with scrupulous propriety by all your officers".
Appeals and independent reviews
Following their conviction, the Birmingham Six continued to steadfastly maintain their innocence. All six men submitted an application to appeal their convictions; this motion was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in March 1976. Two years later, in November 1978, the Birmingham Six were granted legal aid to sue the Lancashire and West Midlands Police forces, and the Home Office, through the Court of Appeal in relation to the injuries they had suffered in custody. This motion to appeal their convictions on these grounds was challenged by the West Midlands Police, and was stricken by Lord Denning
Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999) was an English lawyer and judge. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1923 and became a King's Counsel in 1938. Denning became a judge in 1944 when ...
in January 1980, thereby thwarting the attempts of the men to find legal redress for their grievances via these grounds. The Birmingham Six were initially refused permission to further appeal against their convictions. The following year, Patrick Hill embarked on a month-long hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
in an unsuccessful bid to have his case reopened.
In 1982, Patrick Hill was visited by civil rights lawyer Gareth Peirce
Gareth Peirce (born Jean Margaret Webb; March 1940) is a British solicitor and human rights activist. She has worked on a number of high-profile cases involving allegations of human rights injustices. Her work with Gerry Conlon and the Guildf ...
, who agreed to act on his behalf. Peirce also encouraged Hill and his co-accused to continue to compile evidence attesting to their innocence and to write to media personnel such as journalist Chris Mullin
Christopher Paul Mullin (born July 30, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player, executive and coach. He is a two-time Olympic Gold medalist and a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (in 2010 as a memb ...
, and politicians such as Sir John Farr in an effort to garner support for a review of their case. Farr responded to this correspondence in March 1983, and later thoroughly reviewed all documents relating to the men's conviction, concluding that the forensic evidence which existed against the six men was "not worth the paper it was written on".
In 1985, the current affairs news programme ''World in Action
''World in Action'' was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its product ...
'' presented the first of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings which seriously challenged the validity of the convictions of the six men. In this first episode broadcast, two distinguished forensic scientists conducted a series of Griess tests upon 35 separate common substances which the men had likely come into contact within their everyday lives.
Each forensic scientist confirmed that only substances containing nitrocellulose produced a positive result, and that the Griess test would only produce a positive reaction to nitrocellulose if conducted in a room at typical room temperature. When asked to comment on testimony delivered at the trial of the Birmingham Six, in which Dr. Skuse had stated that the temperature in a room in which the Griess test was conducted would need to be heated to 60 °C to produce a false positive reaction to nitrocellulose (thereby confusing the reading with nitroglycerine), one of the forensic scientists stated, "Frankly, I was amazed."
Also appearing on this first ''World in Action'' episode broadcast was a former West Midlands policeman, who confirmed that each of the Birmingham Six had been subjected to beatings and threats while in the custody of the West Midlands Crime Squad. In addition, a former IRA Chief of Staff, Joe Cahill, on the same programme, acknowledged the IRA's role in the Birmingham pub bombings.
In 1986, British Labour politician and journalist Chris Mullin
Christopher Paul Mullin (born July 30, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player, executive and coach. He is a two-time Olympic Gold medalist and a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (in 2010 as a memb ...
published ''Error of Judgement: Truth About the Birmingham Bombings'', which provided further evidence that the men had been wrongly convicted. The book included anonymous interviews with some of those who claimed to have been involved in the bombings, and who claimed the protocol 30-minute warning bomb warning had been delayed because the preselected telephone box had been vandalised, and that by the time another telephone box was found, the advance warning had been significantly delayed.
1987 Court of Appeal hearing
In January 1987, the Home Office referred the conviction of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal. This motion resulted from the findings of forensic scientists working for the Home Office, who had expressed grave concerns as to the reliability of the Griess tests cited as forensic evidence of the defendants' guilt. In granting this motion, the Home Secretary himself emphasised that he had "little or no confidence" in the reliability of this test. This appeal was heard before three judges of the Court of Appeal in November 1987.
At this hearing, the defence counsels argued that the Birmingham Six were victims of a gross miscarriage of justice, that they had been convicted upon unreliable forensic evidence, and that the signed confessions were contradictory and had been obtained under extreme physical and mental duress
Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desi ...
. The allegations of physical mistreatment were corroborated by a former policeman named Thomas Clarke, who testified as to the defendants' mistreatment while incarcerated at Winson Green Prison.
This appeal also heard evidence from Mullin, who testified in detail as to the contradictions in the written and verbal confessions obtained from the defendants, both with regards to the events of the day, and with regards to the content of the statements made by their fellow defendants—all purported by the Crown to be solid evidence. Mullin also testified as to the fundamental flaws in the forensic tests conducted upon the men's hands for traces of nitroglycerine.
This evidence was contradicted by Igor Judge
Igor Judge, Baron Judge, (born 19 May 1941) is an English former judge who served as the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the head of the judiciary, from 2008 to 2013. He was previously President of the Queen's Bench Division, at the ...
, QC, who informed the three judges of the Court of Appeal of the Crown's allegations that police had obtained false confessions by subjecting the men to severe physical and emotional abuse was "baseless", and of his belief that only film footage of the defendants planting the bombs would provide stronger evidence than that which already existed against the Birmingham Six. On 28 January 1988, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
again upheld the convictions of the Birmingham Six as safe.
Further media exposure
In March 1990, ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
broadcast the Granada Television
ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was it ...
documentary drama
Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
Docudramas typica ...
, ''Who Bombed Birmingham?''; a drama which recounted the events of the arrest of the Birmingham Six, the evidence presented at the trial and Mullins' then-ongoing efforts to prove Birmingham Six had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice. This documentary drama extensively detailed both the flaws in the forensic evidence against the men, and the extensive physical and psychological abuse to which they had been subjected. The programme named four of five members of the Provisional IRA as having organised and committed the Birmingham pub bombings.
One of these men was Mick Murray, who had been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions. Murray was named as having assisted in the selection of the targets, and had later placed the advance warning call to the ''Birmingham Post'' and ''Birmingham Evening Mail'' newspapers, which was delayed by a half-hour due to the fact that the pre-selected telephone had been vandalised and another needed to be located, leading to the fateful delay in the warning calls. The other three named in the documentary were Seamus McLoughlin, whom the programme asserted had also planned the atrocities; James Francis Gavin (a.k.a. James Kelly, who had likewise been tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives), who had allegedly constructed each of the bombs; and Michael Christopher Hayes, who had planted the bombs at the preselected locations.
The executive producer
Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...
of ''Who Bombed Birmingham?'', Ray Fitzwalter, has stated that those involved in the production of this documentary drama are 100 percent certain that those named as the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings had committed the atrocities.
Release
On 29 August 1990, as a result of further fresh evidence uncovered following the 1988 dismissal of appeal, the Home Secretary again referred the convictions of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal. This appeal was heard by Lord Justice Lloyd between 4 and 14 March 1991. At the conclusion of this second appeal, the convictions of the Birmingham Six were quashed upon the bases of police fabrication of evidence, the suppression of evidence, and the unreliability of the scientific evidence presented at their 1975 trial. The tests conducted by Skuse upon the defendants' hands for nitroglycerine were deemed by the three Court of Appeal judges as being particularly unreliable and "demonstrably wrong ... even by the state of forensic science in 1974".
The discrediting of this evidence was sufficient for the Crown to dismiss pleas from the prosecution to find the convictions "unsatisfactory but not unsafe". On the afternoon of 14 March, Lord Justice Lloyd announced his intentions to withdraw the Crown's case against the defendants. Upon announcing his intention to withdraw the convictions, Lord Justice Lloyd informed the Birmingham Six: "In the light of the fresh evidence which has been made available since the last hearing in this court, your appeals will be allowed and you are free to go."
Emerging from the Old Bailey to an ecstatic public reception, each of the men addressed the press and public with varying statements including their concern for "many more people—both Irish and English—still wrongfully behind bars".
In 2001, each of the Birmingham Six was subsequently paid between £840,000 and £1.2 million in compensation.
Renewed inquests
The West Midlands Police and then-Director of Public Prosecutions, Dame
''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several oth ...
Barbara Mills
Dame Barbara Jean Lyon Mills DBE, QC (''née'' Warnock; 10 August 1940 – 28 May 2011) was a British barrister. She held various senior public appointments including Director of Public Prosecutions, and was widely seen as a pioneer for women g ...
, reopened their investigation into the Birmingham pub bombings following the release of the Birmingham Six. In April 1994, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands, Ron Hadfield
Sir Ronald Hadfield (15 July 1939 – 31 January 2013) was the Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police from June 1990 until July 1996. He had previously served with Lancashire Constabulary, Greater Manchester Police and Derbyshire Cons ...
, publicly stated: "The file, so far as we are concerned is now closed ... We have done everything we could possibly have done to bring the perpetrators to justice". Hadfield then emphasised that the Director of Public Prosecutions had found "insufficient evidence for riminalproceedings to be taken".
At the conclusion of the 1994 investigation, the Director of Public Prosecutions implemented a 75-year public-interest immunity Public-interest immunity (PII), previously known as Crown privilege, is a principle of English common law under which the English courts can grant a court order allowing one litigant to refrain from disclosing evidence to the other litigants where ...
certificate on documents relating to the Birmingham pub bombings—effectively preventing any release of documents relating to the reinvestigation until 2069.[ This court order forbids the ]disclosure
Disclosure may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Disclosure'' (The Gathering album), 2012
*Disclosure (band), a UK-based garage/electronic duo
* ''Disclosure'' (novel), 1994 novel written by Michael Crichton
** ''Disclosure'' (1994 film), an American ...
of this evidence to the public on the grounds that any disclosure would be deemed to be damaging to the public interest
The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society.
Overview
Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefore ...
.
On 1 June 2016, the senior coroner
A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...
for Birmingham and Solihull
Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe i ...
, Louise Hunt, announced renewed inquest
An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a coro ...
s into the Birmingham pub bombings, citing two occasions where evidence clearly indicated the West Midlands Police had received a minimum of two advance warnings of the impending attacks at the two pubs—one of which had been made by known IRA members who had unequivocally stated on 10 November that Birmingham was to be "hit next week". This conversation had been reported to police; no evidence is known to exist the West Midlands Police had taken any effective responsive action to this threat. A second warning had been given to police on the day of the bombings, yet no action is known to have been taken.
Although Hunt states that any claims that police were/are protecting an IRA mole
Mole (or Molé) may refer to:
Animals
* Mole (animal) or "true mole", mammals in the family Talpidae, found in Eurasia and North America
* Golden moles, southern African mammals in the family Chrysochloridae, similar to but unrelated to Talpida ...
are unfounded, and that the response of emergency services on the night of the blasts did not in any way contribute to the deaths, in one section of her report, she states: "I have serious concerns that advanced notice of the bombs may have been available to the police, and that they failed to take the necessary steps to protect public life."
In September 2018, the Lord Chief Justice ruled that any suspects in the bombings were not due to be named at upcoming inquests into the bombings, the judges present at the hearing having upheld an earlier coroner's decision to omit issues pertaining to responsibility for the bombings in these inquests. The renewed inquests commenced on 11 February 2019.
With permission from the current head of the IRA, an individual known only as "Witness O" testified at this inquest on 22 March, naming four men (one of whom was Mick Murray) as responsible for the bombings. He also testified as to his belief that security services had been given adequate time to evacuate both pubs. On 5 April, the jury of 11 found that a botched advance IRA telephone warning contributed to or caused the 21 deaths and that there had been no error or omission in the police response to the given warning call which might have limited the loss of life.
Independent campaign
In 2011, Brian and Julie Hambleton, who lost their 18-year-old sister Maxine in the ''Tavern in the Town'' explosion, initiated a campaign called ''Justice for the 21''. The stated aims of this campaign are to highlight and resolve the fact that, although the inquiry is officially an open one, no efforts are being made to actively pursue the perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings unless significant new leads are to surface, and to resolve the issue that the families of the 21 victims have never seen true justice for the loss of their loved ones. ''Justice for the 21'' wants to see the criminal investigation into the bombings reopened and the perpetrators brought to justice or, if deceased, publicly named. When asked in 2012 why she and her brother had instigated this campaign, Julie Hambleton stated: "Someone has to fight for them; someone has to speak on their behalf, because they're not here to do it themselves ... It doesn't matter how much time has passed."
Campaigners for ''Justice for the 21'' believe they have amassed evidence indicating that a British double agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
was part of an IRA unit that had committed the pub bombings.
Following a 2014 meeting held at the West Midlands Police headquarters to discuss the findings of a two-year reassessment of all available evidence connected with the original 1974 inquiry, campaigners within ''Justice for the 21'' were informed that unless "new and significant information" was forthcoming, there would be no further inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings. At this meeting, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands informed the campaigners that 35 pieces of evidence from the original 1974 inquiry were now missing, including the bomb which had been discovered at Hagley Road and safely destroyed in a controlled explosion.
In November 2014, the ''Justice for the 21'' campaign implemented a fresh petition to pressure the British Government to form a new inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings. This petition was signed by four retired West Midlands Police officers, and by Patrick Hill, who wrote of his desire that a fresh inquiry would "establish the true circumstances of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, and to order the release of all government, police, and Crown papers related to the case in order to bring truth and justice for the 21 innocent people who died, the 182 people who were injured, for the six innocent men who were wrongfully convicted, and for the families of all those affected."
Patrick Hill has publicly backed the efforts of the ''Justice for the 21'' campaign, and would later state that, following their 1991 release from prison, the Birmingham Six had been informed of the names of the true perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings and that their identities are known among the upper echelons of both the IRA and the British government. Hill stated that, following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...
, he has been told that five members of the Provisional IRA have admitted to committing the Birmingham pub bombings, relying on a clause in the Good Friday Agreement offering immunity from prosecution. Two of these men have since died and a further two have been promised immunity, whereas a fifth man reportedly had not received any such assurances.
Aftermath
* In the weeks and months following the Birmingham pub bombings, Birmingham's Irish community experienced ostracism, assault and abuse. As a result of these tensions, any public celebrations of Irish culture, including the annual St Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...
Parade, were cancelled. Tensions created in the wake of the bombings would take more than a decade to heal.
* In 1983, the Director of the Birmingham Irish Welfare and Information Centre, Rev. Joe Taaffe, reinstated Birmingham's annual St Patrick's Day Parade, with a message that the Irish community in Birmingham should again unashamedly celebrate their heritage without fear of reprisal. Birmingham's annual St Patrick's Day Parade is considered to be the world's third largest St Patrick's Day Parade, with annual attendance figures reaching or surpassing 130,000.
* Following his release from prison in 1991, Patrick Hill co-founded of the ''Miscarriages of Justice Organisation''; a group whose dual aims are to provide and improve emotional and physical support for those found to have been wrongly convicted once released from prison, and to provide advocacy
Advocacy is an Action (philosophy), activity by an individual or advocacy group, group that aims to influence decision making, decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to infl ...
for those still inside prison who proclaim their innocence. Patrick Hill and the families of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings remain united in their efforts to overturn the 75-year public interest immunity order imposed in 1994, and have publicly demanded the British Government order the release of all government, police, and crown papers related to the case. In reference to the public interest immunity order, a spokeswoman for the ''Justice for the 21'' campaign group commented in 2014:
* In 2004, civil rights campaigner and Catholic priest the Rev. Denis Faul
Denis O'Beirne Faul (14 August 1932 – 21 June 2006), was an Irish Roman Catholic priest and civil rights campaigner best known for his role in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. At his death, he held the honorific title of Monsignor within the Ca ...
(who had previously campaigned for the release of the Birmingham Six) officially called on the IRA to both admit their culpability in the Birmingham pub bombings, and to apologise. These calls were echoed by Sinn Féin, who stated: "What happened in Birmingham 30 years ago was wrong and should not have happened", adding " fissues relating to the IRA concerning the Birmingham bombings are still to be addressed, then it is very clearly the Sinn Féin position that this should happen".
* In 2014, the ''Birmingham Mail'' named Michael Murray as the mastermind behind the Birmingham pub bombings. Murray was an admitted member of the Provisional IRA who held a high rank within the Birmingham IRA unit; he had been arrested just four days after the Birmingham pub bombings and had stood trial alongside the Birmingham Six, and although charged only with conspiracy to cause explosions, the prosecutor had suggested Murray may have been the mastermind behind the bombings. Prior to his 1975 trial, Murray had been convicted of separate charges of conspiracy to cause explosions and with causing an explosion.
* The ''Birmingham Mail'' alleges Murray had assisted in the construction of the bombs at a house in Bordesley Green
Bordesley Green is an inner-city area of Birmingham, England about two miles east of the city centre. It also contains a road of the same name. It is in the Bordesley Green Ward which also covers some of Small Heath.
Heartlands Hospital is l ...
, and had then transported them to the city centre, where he had handed them to another person, who then placed them in the preselected targets, before Murray telephoned the delayed warning calls to the two Birmingham newspapers. These allegations are supported by Patrick Hill and John Walker, who remain adamant that at one stage during the 1975 trial, Murray had privately admitted being one of the bombers.[ Murray allegedly told the two men: "I'm very sorry to see yous in here. Nothing went right that night. The first telephone box we got to was out of order", before threatening the two men that if they ever divulged this admission, both they and their families would be attacked.]
* Mick Murray never admitted his alleged involvement in the Birmingham pub bombings. Following his release from prison, he remained active within the Provisional IRA, and later became a vocal opponent of the decommissioning in Northern Ireland
Decommissioning in Northern Ireland was a process in the Belfast Agreement as part of the Northern Ireland peace process. Under the Belfast Agreement, all paramilitary groups fighting in the Troubles would decommission. Decommissioning was a def ...
as part of the Northern Ireland peace process
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developm ...
. He died of a heart attack in County Tipperary
County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after th ...
in 1999.
* Kieran Conway, a former senior officer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, admitted in 2014 the PIRA had committed the Birmingham pub bombings, adding that he was "appalled and ashamed" at the attack, and that other senior IRA officials shared his opinion the bombings had been immoral and detrimental to the objectives of the republican movement. Conway, however, disputed allegations that an insufficient warning had deliberately been given to security services due to ill-feeling within the IRA over the disrupted funeral arrangements for James McDade, but claimed the perpetrators had tried to use several phone boxes which were either out of order or in use to deliver the protocol 30-minute warning, before finding a free, operable phone box to deliver the warning call.
* On 10 July 2017, BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ire ...
radio released an interview with Michael Christopher Hayes, a self-confessed bomb maker active within the Birmingham IRA unit in the 1970s. In this interview, Hayes (who had been named as a perpetrator of the bombings in the 1990 Granada documentary drama ''Who Bombed Birmingham?'') stated he took "collective responsibility
Collective responsibility, also known as collective guilt, refers to responsibilities of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed insti ...
" for the bombings, although he refused to name who had planted the bombs in each of the locations. Nonetheless, he did state: "We were horrified when we heard, because it was not intended. I personally defused the third bomb. It was not the intention of the IRA to kill innocent people ... It wouldn't have been done if that was the case."
* On 18 November 2020, a 65-year-old man was arrested in Belfast under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000
The Terrorism Act 2000 (c.11) is the first of a number of general Terrorism Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It superseded and repealed the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 and the Northern Ireland (Emer ...
in connection with the bombings. He was released the following day without charge.
Memorials
A memorial plaque for the victims stands in the grounds of Birmingham's Saint Philip's Cathedral. This plaque is engraved with the names of the 21 people killed in the Birmingham pub bombings, and bears the inscription: "The people of Birmingham remember them and those who suffered."
A memorial commemorating those lost and wounded in the Birmingham pub bombings was unveiled on 21 November 2018. Commissioned by the Birmingham Irish Association and designed by a local artist named Anuradha Patel, this memorial consists of three steel trees, and is located outside the city's New Street Station.
Several survivors and relatives of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings have visited the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation
The Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation is a non-governmental charitable organisation located in the Republic of Ireland. Its goal is to promote peace and reconciliation within and between communities through facilitated dialogue and l ...
in the Republic of Ireland in an effort to come to terms with the events of 21 November 1974. The Glencree Centre is a charitable organisation whose stated aim is to promote peace and reconciliation in Britain and Ireland as a response to the Troubles. One of those who has visited the Glencree Centre, Maureen Carlin (who survived the ''Mulbery Bush'' bombing), said in 2009 that she had spoken with two former IRA members, who referred to the Birmingham pub bombings as a mistake for which the IRA would never publicly admit responsibility.
Media
Film
The made-for-TV film ''Who Bombed Birmingham?'' was first broadcast in 1990. Directed by Mike Beckham, the film is directly inspired by the painstaking efforts of then-journalist Chris Mullin to prove the six men convicted of the bombing had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice, as detailed in his 1986 book ''Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings''. The film casts John Hurt
Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 25 January 2017) was an English actor whose career spanned over five decades. Hurt was regarded as one of Britain's finest actors. Director David Lynch described him as "simply the greatest actor in t ...
as Mullin and Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw (born 21 January 1945) is an English actor. He came to national recognition as Doyle in ITV (TV network), ITV crime-action television drama series ''The Professionals (TV series), The Professionals'' (1977–1983). Further notable ...
as Granada Television ''World in Action
''World in Action'' was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its product ...
'' producer and fellow researcher Ian McBride, as they investigate the convictions of the "Birmingham Six."
Books
* ''Encyclopedia of Modern Murder 1962–1982'', by Colin Wilson ()
* ''Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings'', by Chris Mullin ()
* ''Forever Lost, Forever Gone'', by Patrick Hill ()
* ''Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles'', by David McKittrick ()
* ''The Birmingham Bombs'', by Brian Gibson ()
* ''The Birmingham Six and Other Cases: Victims of Circumstance'', by Louis Blom-Cooper ()
Television
* The British investigative current affairs programme ''World in Action'' has broadcast a total of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings between 1985 and 1991. The last of these episodes, ''World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story'', was broadcast on 18 March 1991—four days after the release of the Birmingham Six—and was later nominated for a BAFTA award.
* The BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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have commissioned a 30-minute documentary focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings. This documentary, ''Who Murdered Maxine?'', was first broadcast in December 2013 and focuses upon the ongoing campaign by relatives of one of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings, Maxine Hambleton, to reopen the investigation into the bombings and their ongoing efforts to raise public awareness of their campaign.
A website detailing the campaign by relatives of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings for those responsible to be brought to trial
with Julie Hambleton detailing the resolve and obstacles the ''Justice for the 21'' campaign has endured in their efforts to seek a fresh inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings
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