Campaigners renew plea for public inquiry 50 years after Birmingham pub bombings

Relatives of people killed in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings have renewed calls for a public inquiry “as a matter of urgency”, as they prepare to mark the 50th anniversary of the IRA atrocities.

Julie and Brian Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine Hambleton died in the twin blasts, believe an inquiry could disclose new evidence capable of leading to a new investigation into the bombings.

Twenty-one people died and about 200 were injured on November 21 1974 when bombs exploded minutes apart in the Mulberry Bush, at the foot of the Rotunda building, and the Tavern in the Town in New Street, in what remains the worst unsolved terrorist atrocity committed in Great Britain.

Speaking near a permanent memorial to the victims outside New Street station, within sight of the Rotunda building, Julie Hambleton said of this week’s anniversary of the attacks: “Fifty years for us is just like last week, and for the survivors too, I would imagine that they re-live it in their sleep with nightmares.”

Ms Hambleton, who founded the long-running Justice4The21 campaign group with her brother, added: “It’s something that never goes away and something that you never forget.

“And that’s why our campaign exists, to be the voice of those who are not here to fight for justice and truth themselves.”

Asked what he remembers of the day of the attacks, Mr Hambleton, who dropped Maxine off in the city centre, said: “Unfortunately I could narrate every minute of that evening from the very moment my sister ironed me a shirt.

“I asked her if she could iron me a shirt and then I would give her a lift into the city centre, which I would have done anyway.”

Mr Hambleton became emotional as he added: “That’s what I remember, dropping her off. Seeing her get out of the car and walk away.

“It’s very hard. We have to be hard in all other areas, fighting the authorities to get the truth, and it gets worse every year because we find out more truths of what really happened on the night, as opposed to what the authorities want the public and ourselves to think.”

Mr Hambleton and his sister, who both regard a 2019 inquest into the bombings, which failed to examine which individuals were responsible, as a “whitewash”, hope a public inquiry could force the disclosure of documents currently subject to 75-year secrecy rules.

Ms Hambleton, 61, who has been denied legal aid about 14 times during the group’s campaigning, forcing it to rely on donations, said: “Every day that we campaign, including Thursday, whilst it will be the day that we remember everyone who was impacted that day, we fight for a statutory public inquiry.

“We would be able to compel people to give evidence. We would be given access to documents that have previously been denied us, and actually been denied ever existed.

“That could potentially bring about new evidence. With that new evidence there is a possibility that a fresh investigation could take place, where a potential perpetrator or perpetrators could be investigated.

“Because for our family that’s what we seek. We seek justice. This was murder, pure and simple.”

Ms Hambleton questioned why public inquiries had, quite rightly in her view, been set up to examine the Manchester Arena bombing, the Grenfell tragedy and the Salisbury poisonings, but calls for one into the Birmingham attacks had repeatedly fallen on deaf ears.

Asked what her message to the Government is, Ms Hambleton said: “Please give us a statutory one public inquiry as a matter of urgency.

“A public inquiry could help to bring about some form of reconciliation for everyone who was impacted. Why does it appear that we, or our city, are being discriminated against?”

Mr Hambleton, 69, said: “It wasn’t just 21 people that died on that evening. A lot of family members died afterwards because they turned to alcohol, prescription drugs and they just died heartbroken.

“We have met a lot of the families and their relatives and you can’t escape the emotion of the time. I relive that night 50 years ago like no-one can imagine.

“And when people say to us ‘we know how you feel’, we know they are being polite, but they don’t. And we would never want them to know.

“All we want is justice. As far as I am concerned I will be fighting for the truth to the day I die.”

Six Irishmen, Hugh Callaghan, Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, John Walker, Richard McIlkenny and Billy Power, were wrongly convicted over the attacks and jailed for life in 1975, but were freed in 1991 after the Court of Appeal ruled their convictions were unsafe.

Inquest hearings which concluded in April 2019 found that a botched IRA warning call led to the deaths of the 21 people unlawfully killed.

An 11-member jury, which sat for almost six weeks, unanimously concluded an inadequate warning call by the Provisional IRA cost police searching the area vital minutes.

They also found there was “not sufficient evidence” of any failings, errors or omissions by West Midlands Police’s response to the bomb warning call.

During the inquest, a man identified in court only as Witness O, named four of the men he claimed were involved in the bombings as Seamus McLoughlin, Mick Murray, Michael Hayes and James Francis Gavin.

McLoughlin, who was said to have planned the operation, died in 2014, and Gavin died in 2002.

Hayes said in a media interview in 2017 that he took “collective responsibility” and had defused a third bomb planted in Hagley Road, Birmingham, on the night of the blast.

Murray, who died in 1999, is said to have called in the botched warning.

The inquest was told that the third unexploded bomb, found near a bank, was misplaced by police.

The Crown Prosecution Service said in August last year that it could not bring charges despite a “thorough and careful” review of evidence related to the bombings, after a reinvestigation by West Midlands Police.

In a statement, West Midlands Police said: “The terrorist attacks 50 years ago on 21 November 1974 at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town pubs killed 21 innocent people, injured over 200 and devastated many more lives.

“We know the families and survivors of the tragedy feel the pain every bit as much now as they did then and that they maintain a desire for answers regarding the events of that terrible day.

“The bombings were abhorrent, cowardly and evil and shook Birmingham to its very core. It will always be remembered as one of Birmingham’s darkest hours.”