Pub bomb families threaten boycott of reopened inquests
Campaigners claim hearings will yield little new information
BIRMINGHAM pub bomb justice campaigners and their lawyers are on the verge of boycotting next week’s new inquests into the Birmingham pub bombings.
When a decision to reopen the inquests was made in 2016 following a campaign by the families it was thought that the inquests represented the best chance of getting to the truth behind the bombings.
But ‘Justice4the21’ families now say they cannot afford to be there and, in any case, they fear the scope of the inquests has become so narrow they will yield little new information.
It follows the latest ruling on funding by The Legal Aid Agency which they say will provide only a fraction of that which had been requested.
Campaign spokeswoman Julie Hambleton branded it as “absolutely outrageous” while Christopher Stanley, of lawyers KRW Law, said the integrity of the inquest was a serious concern to his clients. He said: “We could walk away, we could boycott it.”
The 10 families his firm represents are bitterly disappointed that :
Coroner Sir Peter Thornton has ruled out of scope the issue of the perpetrators, who organised, made and planted the devices.
Also ruled out of investigation is whether there was an informer within the IRA cell responsible for the bombings after a pre-inquest hearing last month heard there was “no evidence” of a state agent involvement.
There are concerns over the lack of disclosure of vital evidence and that some key files which may have shed light on the explosions at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs have disappeared.
A five-week inquest is due to start in Birmingham on Monday, but KRW Law has now heard that its application for a well-resourced legal team has been rejected. Cam- paigners say The Legal Aid Agency has awarded the Northern Ireland firm only a tenth of the funding it had requested for its 10 clients, leaving it dwarfed by the size and resources available to the publiclyfunded legal team of police officers and government officials.
The Legal Aid Agency has previously refused to discuss individual cases but Ms Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was among those killed, said: “Something is seriously amiss, it’s absolutely outrageous. We are meant to have a judiciary system that is the envy of the world, but we’re going to be left with more questions than we started with.”
Separate to the Legal Aid issue, the campaign has already had to raise almost £100,000 in a campaign to fund legal challenges over the scope of the inquests at the High Court and Appeal Court which ultimately ended in failure.
Mr Stanley: “We have discussed putting down tools because we have to act in the best interests of our clients. An intelligent person in their position might say: ‘What is the point in me engaging in this?’”
“If one of the purposes of complex multi-death inquests is to allay rumours and suspicion, then this will not.”
If the Justice4the21 campaign families snub the inquests, it will leave just two other families represented by a separate legal team at the inquests.
If one of the purposes of complex multi-death inquests is to allay rumours and suspicion, then this will not
Families’ lawyer Christopher Stanley