‘I did Harrods, Brighton, not Birmingham’

HARRODS, LONDON

DATE: DECEMBER 17, 1983

WHAT HAPPENED: There were six killed and 90 injured when a car bomb ripped through an entrance to the department store. Though the IRA sent a warning the bomb was imminent at 12.45pm, the area was not evacuated and it exploded at 1.30. Three Metropolitan Police officers, Inspector Stephen Dodd, 34, Sergeant Noel Lane, 28, and PC Jane Arbuthnot 22, were killed. Three members of the public, Kenneth Salvesen, 28, Jasmine Cochrane Patrick, 25, and Philip Geddes, 25, were also killed. PREVIOUS COMMENT FROM HAYES: He has never made any public comment in relation to the Harrods explosion. It has however been alleged at different times over the years that the 76-year-old was behind the attack along with other London bombs at the height of the IRA’s campaign in the early 1980s.

BRIGHTON GRAND HOTEL

DATE: OCTOBER 12, 1984

WHAT HAPPENED: Five died in an IRA attempt to assassinate members of British government ahead of the 1984 Conservative Party Conference at Brighton’s Grand Hotel. A long-delay time bomb was planted in the hotel by Patrick Magee before Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet arrived. Those killed included the Conservative MP and Deputy Chief Whip Sir Anthony Berry, and a further 31 were injured while Mrs Thatcher narrowly escaped. Patrick Magee was given a life sentence, but was released under the Good Friday Agreement in 1999 after 14 years.

PREVIOUS COMMENT FROM

HAYES: ‘I planted the bomb with Magee. We were in the hotel for four days, then home for three weeks before it went off. We missed her by 10 seconds.

‘We had one primary target, and one only: Margaret Thatcher. We wanted to kill her. On that night I’d saved a bottle of Jameson. I was sitting on a farm with two members of the Army Council. At first [the news] said we killed her. For the first time ever, I had a glass of whiskey. I stayed awake all night. I was delighted. Next morning it came out; we’d missed it. The pig.’

BIRMINGHAM PUBS

DATE: NOVEMBER 21, 1974

WHAT HAPPENED: On a winter’s night, a man rang the Birmingham Post and Mail warning two bombs had been planted in the city centre. At 20:17 a bomb in a duffel bag exploded in the Mulberry Bush pub in the Rotunda building, killing 10 people. Minutes later a second bomb went off in the Tavern in the Town leaving 11 more dead. Six men – Hugh Callaghan, Paddy Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker – were wrongly jailed for life in 1975 for the bombings. The group, called the Birmingham Six, had their convictions quashed on appeal and were released in 1991.

In 2019 a convicted IRA bomber named four men he claimed were responsible for the Birmingham pub bombings. At inquests into the deaths of the 21 victims, ‘Witness O’ named those responsible as Seamus McLoughlin, Mick Murray, Michael Hayes and James Gavin. PREVIOUS COMMENT FROM HAYES: ‘Yes, they named me in that... I was named, as such. Not proven but named.’ He said he was a ‘participant in the IRA’s activities in Birmingham’. In 2019 he said: ‘You have to have proof, you can’t go into a court without proof. I didn’t do anything, I literally didn’t do it. I don’t care who believes it or not.’