Crunch decision over scope of pub bombs inquest expected
BIRMINGHAM pub bomb campaigners will this week hear the outcome of a costly legal battle over the scope of the new inquest into the deaths of the Birmingham pub bombings victims.
The decision in a crunch judicial review will be revealed in Birmingham Civil Justice Centre by Mrs Justice Carr on Friday.
Ten of the families, who formed campaign group Justice4the21, applied for the judicial review in a bid to overturn a controversial ruling by Coroner Sir Peter Thornton to exclude the issue of the perpetrators from the new inquest. They had to raise a total of £30,000 in a matter of weeks after being refused legal aid.
Their barrister, Adam Straw, told the High Court hearing: “There has never been a full and independent investigation for who was responsible.”
However, Mr Thornton’s barrister, Sir Peter Skelton QC, said that inquests were not the correct arena to consider who carried out the bombings, and risked turning hearings into a “proxy criminal trial”.
Justice4the21 spokeswoman Julie Hambleton, whose elder sister Maxine was among those who died, said: “We just have to keep our fingers crossed and wait a little bit longer. But we know that when we go to find out, there are thousands of our supporters across the country who will be with us in spirit, and we can’t thank them enough.”
A total of 21 people died and almost 200 were injured when bombers devastated two city centre bars, The Mulberry Bush, in the base of The Rotunda, and The Tavern in The Town, in New Street.
The slaughter happened on November 21, 1974, at the height of an IRA bombing campaign on the British mainland.
The Birmingham Six were later wrongly convicted after a flawed police investigation. They served almost 17 years behind bars in one of Britain’s most infamous miscarriages of justice before their sentences were quashed and they were released. That should have resulted in inquests, which were originally opened in 1974, being properly concluded, but they were never resumed.
In 2016 Justice4the21 successfully campaigned for a new inquest to be opened. If they lose the judicial review battle, it appears unlikely the families will continue to participate in the inquest process.