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[image alt="Mulberry Bush" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2018/01/mulberry-bush-3-296x213.jpg" width="296" height="213" credit-source="PA%20Archives%2FPA%20Images" caption="The%20ruins%20of%20the%20Mulberry%20Bush%20pub%20in%20Birmingham%20the%20day%20after%20the%20bombings%2C%2022%20November%201974%0A" class="alignnone" /end]
A COURT IN England has found that the scope of the upcoming inquest into the deaths of the Birmingham bombings in November 1974 should be broadened.
21 people lost their lives in the bombing of two pubs in the English midlands city on 21 November 1974.
The case was brought forward by 10 families of the victims and they campaigned successfully to have an inquest into their deaths.
RTÉ is reporting that the coroner leading the fresh inquest had ruled he will not deal with the issue of who the bombing was carried out by – a key aspect that the families want to be addressed.
In Birmingham today, Justice Carr said she would quash that decision and remit the case in order for the coroner to reconsider his decision, according to ITV.
Following the bombing, six Irish men, thereafter dubbed the Birmingham Six, spent 16 years in prison for the crime before being cleared of all wrongdoing in connection with it.
The men subsequently claimed that police had coerced them into signing confessions using physical and psychological torture.
The victims were killed when two bombs were detonated in two pubs, the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town, on 21 November 1974. A third bomb was found later that night but it failed to detonate.
Family reaction
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was among the 21 victims, said she hopes that the coroner changes his decision on the scope so that it no longer excludes “the bomb makers and their associates from being mentioned in any way at the forthcoming inquest”.
She said that she spoke with the coroner last year and begged him to have them included because “if it wasn’t for the murderers our loved ones wouldn’t be dead”.
[image alt="Birmingham pub bombings inquest" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2018/01/birmingham-pub-bombings-inquest-5-296x211.jpg" width="296" height="211" credit-source="Yui%20Mok" credit-via="PA%20Images" caption="Julie%20Hambleton" class="alignnone" /end]
If the “perpetrators” are not mentioned in an inquest, Hambleton said she sees it as a waste of taxpayers’ money and that will not provide the truth.
She also criticised the British government for the lack of work it has done into the case.
“There are laws in place but no one in government appears to have the backbone to enforce the laws they implement,” she said.
Although the IRA never claimed responsibility for the attack, they are widely believed to have planted the bombs.
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This can only be a good thing
@Tom Tom:
Agreed
The blueshirts will soon have to realise that what happened in the north was controlled by dublin and london.
That’s why the truth about birmingham, dublin and monaghan etc will never be allowed out.
@Dermot Lane: its a simple as that normal people were having a drink and were targeted because it was easy…to compound the atrocity they let innocents take the fall for them
@Nick Allen: No it wouldn’t. Everyone knows who SF are and what they are like, stupid people keep voting for them.
I can’t see how identifying those responsible can not be part of this inquest. It was an absolutely horrific act. And as the GFA nears its 20th anniversary it is time for the peace to be extended to these families.
Incidentally, the Birmingham bombing also highlighted the absolute amateurism with which casualties were meant to be avoided. The perpetrators supposedly found the phone booth from which they wanted to call press and police vandalized, and took so long to find a working one that the bombs went off just minutes later.
I’ve wondered at times whether the vandals ever realized this consequence. Not that the bombing was their fault as such, but this link in the chain of events makes it all the more heartbreaking.
@Nick Allen: No I’m not blaming the vandals, I’ve said so explicitly. But as TheRisen hasn’t appeared yet you seemingly want to take it out on someone else instead. I want the perpetrators to be found and punished. And just to be clear once more: I don’t mean the vandals by that.
@sixmile:
Who was responsible for the bombings then? Are you trying to separate SF and the IRA?
@Nick Allen: Accepted, I’ll toast you a Guinness virtually next time I’m having one. The phone story makes the whole thing even more gutwrenching than it already is, but I guess even mentioning this seemingly draws attention to that more than to the murders that happened.
@Mick Tobin:
It’s sickening how SF blame the phones and it makes my blood boil. I am having a pint to waiting if a flight and maybe read ‘phone’ in your comment too quickly (I am not on my first pint!) and I reacted badly. Bad me, sorry and enjoy your Guinness.
Hope the find the lowlifes that caused this cowardly act- they are so brave that they won’t call me forward- cowards and cowards who protect them-
@Gerry Murphy:
probably brit agents.
@sixmile: No lowlife Cowards
@sixmile: like baron adams?
have your say