Judith Ward

The M62 coach bombing, sometimes referred to as the M62 Massacre, occurred on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in northern England, when a 25-pound (11 kg) Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb hidden inside the luggage locker of a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members exploded, killing twelve people (nine soldiers and three civilians) and injuring thirty-eight others aboard the vehicle.

Ten days after the bombing, 25-year-old Judith Ward was arrested in Liverpool while waiting to board a ferry to Ireland. She was later convicted of the M62 coach bombing and two other separate, non-fatal attacks and remained incarcerated until her conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1992, with the court hearing Government forensic scientists had deliberately withheld information from her defence counsel at her October 1974 trial which strongly indicated her innocence. As such, her conviction was declared unsafe.

Ward was released from prison in May 1992, having served over 17 years of a sentence of life imprisonment plus thirty years. Her wrongful conviction is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

The M62 coach bomb has been described as "one of the IRA's worst mainland terror attacks" and remains one of the deadliest mainland acts of the Troubles.

The bombing

The bombed coach had been specially commissioned to carry British Army and Royal Air Force personnel—on weekend leave with their families—to and from bases at Catterick and Darlington during a period of railway strike action sourcing from a labour dispute. The vehicle itself had departed from Manchester in the late evening of Sunday 3 February and was travelling at approximately along the M62 motorway en route to Catterick Garrison. Shortly after midnight, as most of those aboard were sleeping and when the bus was travelling between junctions 26 and 27 of the M62, the bomb—concealed within a suitcase or similar parcel inside the coach's luggage compartment—exploded.

The explosion reduced the rear of the coach to a "tangle of twisted metal", trapping several casualties within the debris and throwing individuals and severed limbs up to upon and around the motorway.p. 240, Williams & Head No other vehicle was damaged in the explosion, although the vehicle travelling immediately behind the coach is known to have ploughed into the scattered debris of the rear of the coach. The coach itself travelled for more than before the driver, 39-year-old Roland Handley (himself injured by flying glass), was able to steer the coach to a halt upon the hard shoulder.

Immediate efforts

One surviving soldier later described his recollections of having been blown through the emergency doors of the coach, only to find himself lying upon the ground viewing a "mangled wreck". This soldier later assisted a young girl aged approximately 17 with injured legs whom he found lying on her back approximately "back up the otorway. According to this individual, the girl had repeatedly hysterically screamed: "My God! The floor just opened up and I fell through!" as he provided medical assistance. Another survivor, nine-year-old David Dendeck, regained consciousness to find himself trapped in the wreckage of the coach listening to his 14-year-old sister, Catherine, shouting his name as he observed other survivors "screaming and running up the verge" alongside the coach.

One of the first motorists to offer assistance after Handley had navigated the coach to a halt was John Clark, who later recollected seeing a young man lying upon the motorway with one leg partially severed and the body of a child, stating: "It was just absolutely ... unbelievable. It was dark, so you couldn't see how bad the injuries really were, but it was the smell of it. It was absolutely total carnage."

The entrance hall of the nearby westbound section of the Hartshead Moor service station was used as an impromptu first aid station for those wounded in the blast. Off-duty staff at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Batley General Hospital were also contacted and encouraged to report for duty in response to the emergency.

Fatalities

The explosion killed eleven people outright and wounded over thirty others, one of whom died four days later. Amongst the dead were nine soldiers – two from the Royal Artillery, three from the Royal Corps of Signals and four from the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Four of the servicemen killed in the bombing were teenagers and all but one of the serving personnel killed in the explosion hailed from Greater Manchester. Twelve others upon the coach suffered severe injuries, including a six-year-old boy, who was badly burned.

One member of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers killed in the explosion was 23-year-old Corporal Clifford Haughton, whose entire family, consisting of his wife, Linda (also 23), and sons Lee, aged 5, and Robert, aged 2, were also killed. All four had been sitting directly above the bomb, and all were killed instantly.

Reaction

Although mainland Britain had seen several IRA attacks—successful or otherwise—within the previous year, the M62 coach bombing was the most severe attack upon the mainland to date. Press and public alike were incensed, with the BBC
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