Government rules out public inquiry into Birmingham pub bombings | Birmingham
Ministers have ruled out a public inquiry into the IRA’s 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.
On 21 November 1974, 21 people were killed and 220 injured when bombs were detonated at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs in Birmingham in an attack believed to have been carried out by the Provisional IRA.
No one was convicted for the attacks. In 1991, six men had their convictions overturned after being imprisoned for more than 16 years in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
The families have long campaigned for a public inquiry into the bombings to find out what the government knew at the time and why no one was brought to justice.
Security minister Dan Jarvis said on Thursday that while he had deep sympathy for the families, the government had decided not to launch an investigation “after careful consideration”.
Jarvis said he believed the government’s Independent Reconciliation and Information Recovery Commission, set up to investigate deaths related to the Troubles, could look into the Birmingham attacks.
Campaigner Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the attacks, said the announcement showed “the government doesn’t care”.
The 62-year-old has long been fighting for a public inquiry and said he and other bereaved families had “no intention” of joining the commission.
“There is no real independence in the commission,” he said, adding that this “was tantamount to them doing their own homework.”
Grieving families have been calling for years for the security services to release documents related to the incident, especially what the government knew before and after the attack and what evidence there was that could lead to arrests.
“The entire British establishment is opposed to our families learning the truth,” he said. “Only a legitimate public inquiry led by a judge will give us access to the documents they claim they do not have.”
A statutory public inquiry has certain legal powers, including the power to require witnesses to attend and disclose information relevant to the investigation.
An inquest fought for by bereaved families in 2019 found the victims were unlawfully killed by the IRA but did not identify those responsible.
Hambleton said: “The security services told the then coroner that they had absolutely no files or documents relating to what remains Britain’s longest unsolved mass murder of the 20th century, but now they want to force us to go the way of this Heritage Commission to share information they claim never existed.”
Hodge Hill and Solihull North MP Liam Byrne described the government’s decision as “deeply disappointing”.
“After so much time, so much pain and so much disappointment,” Byrne said in a statement about
Talking about the family’s endless pain, Hambleton said: Justice 4 21 groupHe said: “No family, of any kind, will ever have closure. There is no such thing. Pain and sorrow.”
