New clue in IRA pub bombing . . . but police won’t investigate
POLICE probing the 1974 Guildford pub bombings have potential new forensic evidence – but will not investigate because of controversial legislation, it was revealed yesterday.
Surrey Police wrote to the families of five victims killed in the IRA blast to say it had ‘a potential forensic line of inquiry’, almost half a century after the bombing.
But it said its ability to investigate the lead was effectively blocked by the new Northern Ireland Legacy Act due to come into force next month. The police force described the timing as ‘unfortunate’ but said there was no prospect of a prosecution before the new law came into effect.
The family of one of the Guildford victims, soldier Ann Hamilton, 19, said it was the latest episode in a ‘catastrophic failure of policing and criminal justice’.
Under the new legislation, all investigations into cases relating to the Troubles are to end on May 1.
It also offers a limited form of immunity for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.
Soldiers Caroline Slater, 18, William Forsyth, 18, John Hunter, 17, and Miss Hamilton, and civilian Paul Craig, 21, were killed and 65 people others injured during the blast at the Horse and Groom pub in Guildford, Surrey, in October 1974.
Another bomb in a second pub which had already been evacuated injured a further eight people.
Surrey Police said it had carried out a ‘thorough and detailed assessment’ of the case in preparation for a resumed inquest. The potential new lead was identified during that process and the force said it submitted ‘items’ for forensic analysis, and received the results in August last year.
Miss Hamilton’s sister Cassandra said Surrey Police had told her family it would not be advancing any further investigations prior to the start of the Legacy Act.
She said: ‘The Legacy Act appears to provide Surrey Police with another reason not to do anything – despite now telling us, out of the blue and a month before the Legacy Act comes into force, that there is “new evidence”.’
Solicitors KRW Law, acting for the family, said they had asked the force for more information, including
whether the new evidence involved a fingerprint or DNA. Barry O’Donnell, of KRW, said the letter raised questions over when Surrey Police knew about the new line of inquiry and when it was decided not to reopen any investigations.
Surrey’s Deputy Chief Constable Nev Kemp said the assessment carried out since the inquests were announced in 2019 had been complex. He added that the enactment of the Act in September 2023 ‘means there is now no prospect of reaching the stage of prosecution by the deadline of May 1, 2024 set by the Act.’
Eleven people were found guilty over the atrocity but their convictions were later quashed. IRA members Brendan Dowd and Martin Joseph O’Connell admitted carrying out the bombings in 1976 but had been imprisoned for other offences and freed during the peace process.
‘Another reason to do nothing’