Confronted in Tesco, the convicted IRA bomber accused over Birmingham pub atrocity This feels just like a punch in the stomach
THIS is the moment an alleged suspect in the Birmingham pub bombings nearly 44 years ago is confronted over the case on television – as he leaves a supermarket with his shopping.
Michael Reilly denies any involvement in the bombing of the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs which claimed 21 lives.
Reilly – who has been convicted of separate IRA bomb plots – was found and questioned by ITV’s investigative reporter John Ware as he left a branch of Tesco in Belfast.
The journalist – who in 2000 named five men said to have been responsible for the 1998 Omagh bomb for the BBC’s Panorama – asked the 63-year- old directly if he was responsible for planting the devices.
The alleged former Birmingham IRA member denied planting the bombs, or knowing that the bombings were going to take place. He responded to further questions with: ‘I’ve got nothing to say... Well, you can ask what you want, but I’m not going to answer... You’re wasting your time.’
Reilly’s solicitor told ITV: ‘Our client denies all the allegations... and does not intend to respond any further to the unfounded allegations you have made.’
The confrontation is an excerpt from a new documentary by the journalist on the pub bombings and who was behind them, which is due to be broadcast tonight.
ITV’s The Hunt For The Birmingham Bombers comes days after the Court of Appeal backed a coroner’s decision not to allow the forthcoming resumed inquests into the deaths of the bomb victims to examine who was responsible for the atrocity, Britain’s biggest unsolved terror crime.
While other suspects have been publicly linked to the November 1974 pub bombings in the past – starting with a Granada TV World in Action drama-documentary in 1990 – Reilly has never previously been linked to the attack.
At the time of the Birmingham pub bombings, which led to the wrongful convictions of half a dozen men who became known as the Birmingham Six, Reilly was a 19-year- old married father living in Birmingham and working as a labourer, Ware said.
The documentary will also report that Reilly was arrested in 1975 on suspicion of being an IRA member and was later convicted of involvement in bomb plots – none of which resulted in any deaths.
He was jailed for ten years at Birmingham Crown Court in October 1976 along with four other members of an IRA cell. The terror gang had been behind a series of explosions in the West Midlands in 1974. The five were jointly charged with conspiracy to cause explosions.
In the programme, Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the blast at the Tavern in the Town, says: ‘What do I want? Me, personally, I want the b******s who killed my sister and the other 20 to be brought to justice, short and simple.’
She breaks down in tears after being shown the footage of Reilly being confronted by Ware. She says: ‘We could have walked past him when we were in Belfast. When people ask you how’d you feel if you met them or saw them, you can never answer that question... But this is... I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel.’
Ware names Reilly’s alleged fellow bomb conspirator as James Francis Gavin, then 34. The former British soldier lived in Birmingham and has previously been reported to have taken delivery of the bombs.
Gavin, under the alias James Kelly, stood trial alongside the Six and was convicted of handling explosives and handed a one-year sentence. He died in 2002.
The Six were freed by the Court of Appeal in 1991 after 17 years behind bars when forensic evidence against them was found to be discredited and judges heard evidence police notes had been tampered with.
Last week, announcing the Court of Appeal’s decision over the forthcoming resumed inquests, Lord Burnett said coroner Sir Peter Thornton had made ‘no error of law’ when he ruled in July 2017 that trying to identify suspected bombers would be unlawful because the inquests could be seen as ‘taking on the role of a proxy trial’.
After the case, Miss Hambleton said: ‘We feel as though we’ve been punched in the stomach.’
÷The Hunt For The Birmingham Bombers is being shown on ITV1 at 10.45pm tonight.