Pub victims’ families want answers on intelligence Hope inquests can reveal truth
FAMILIES of the Birmingham pub bombing victims want forthcoming inquests to shed light on what intelligence services knew about the IRA threat before the attacks.
Campaigners last week won a change in the law which means they can now apply for legal aid for representation at fresh hearings into the double bombings in November 1974.
The families said they were now “cautiously optimistic” about the inquest process, having first had to successfully fight last year for the right to new hearings and then battling to secure legal funding.
Now campaigners say they will focus on getting the broadest possi- ble scope for those inquests. A preliminary hearing will be held on February 23 and the inquests themselves are expected to start in the autumn.
The families want the coroner to hear evidence about what the British security forces and police knew about the terrorist threat up to a year before the atrocity.
Julie Hambleton, whose older sister Maxine was killed in the attacks, said only in-depth hearings could hope to answer the families’ unanswered questions as to how loved ones met their deaths.
One of the country’s most senior coroners, Peter Thornton QC, will hear new inquests into the deaths of the 21 victims.
Lawyers for eight of the families, Northern Ireland-based KRW Law, want a Middleton inquest, under the convention on human rights, to establish the circumstances of how the victims met their deaths.
On the night of November 21 1974, the IRA planted two bombs which ripped through the Tavern in the Town and nearby Mulberry Bush pubs, killing 21 and injuring 182 others. The botched police investigation into the attacks led to the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham Six - one of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
West Midlands Police opposed fresh inquests, despite new evidence coming to light that police may have allegedly ignored two tip-offs of an imminent IRA attack in the city.
A spokesman for KRW Law said: “We want to look at the prior intelligence, if there was a failure to act, a failure to respond, (and) the use of intelligence. Obviously it won’t look at the miscarriage of justice, but if intelligence relied upon led to wrongful conviction then – ipso facto – the investigation of the event was flawed from the start.” Ms Hambleton said: “We’ve got all these witnesses coming forward now and the information we have – if proved to be credible – has the potential to be extremely significant. “As such we need as wide as possible a scope, not just going back to November 21, but possibly a year prior to 1974.” Ms Hambleton was also critical of the existing legal aid system, saying families still had to fill in legal aid forms with their personal financial details, while state agencies were able to rely on taxpayer funding.
We want to look at the prior intelligence, if there was a failure to act, a failure to respond, and the use of intelligence Legal firm KRW Law