‘Do your job and bring bombers to justice’
Plea to police by families of Birmingham pub victims after inquest jury returns 21 unlawful killing verdicts
THE families of victims of the Birmingham pub bombings yesterday made an impassioned plea to police to “go out and do the job” and prosecute IRA suspects at the conclusion of the inquest into the terrorist atrocity.
The jury returned verdicts of unlawful killing for the 21 people who died in the 1974 bombings, and ruled that a botched Provisional IRA warning caused or contributed to the murders.
The verdict defied an IRA attempt to claim the victims were killed by accident because the terror cell failed to make coded warning calls in time.
Relatives demanded West Midlands Police make arrests after a chief suspect, who is still alive, was named at the inquest by an IRA witness in a move sanctioned by its leadership. The same witness was accused of protecting a second man, also still alive.
Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was killed, said: “West Midlands Police have always told us when they get new evidence they will act on it. Well here you go, you have the new evidence and I’m sure there is more to be had and more to be found.
“We now demand of Dave Thompson, the chief constable of West Midlands Police, to tie his shoelaces, black his shoes and go out and do the job because we’ve heard new evidence that two of the murderers are out there.”
Ms Hambleton, who runs the campaign group Justice4the21, thanked lawyers who had worked free of charge on behalf of victims after families were denied Legal Aid, adding: “We are still having to beg for money and prostitute ourselves on the streets to raise funds because we still do not have legal funding.”
Leslie Thomas QC, representing 10 bereaved families, also urged police to find the killers, almost 45 years after two bombs ripped apart the packed Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs on Nov 21, 1974. He said: “We just hope, in light of the jury’s unequivocal finding that the IRA murdered 21 innocent people, that the West Midlands Police will now redouble their efforts in terms of those bombers who may still be alive to bring them to justice.”
Sir Peter Thornton QC, the coroner, had directed the 11 jurors to return a verdict of unlawful killing, telling them: “This was murder in ordinary language and murder in law.”
The verdict will cast a spotlight on two men identified over the atrocity.
A convicted IRA bomber, known only as Witness O, said four men had been involved in the bombings, including Michael Hayes, 70, who is alive and living in Dublin. Asked if a second living suspect, Michael Patrick Reilly, had been involved, Witness O replied: “No, I don’t remember him at all. Reilly? I would remember that.”
Mr Reilly, who lives in Belfast, was named in an ITV documentary last year and accused of being the “Young Planter”, placing one of the bombs. He has strongly denied the allegation.
The “Birmingham Six” were jailed in 1975 on 21 counts of murder but freed in 1991 after one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice. Nobody has been brought to justice for the murders.
Chris Mullin, the journalist and former Labour minister who helped free the Birmingham Six, was called a “disgrace” by Ms Hambleton when he refused to name any of the still-living bombers during his evidence.
Mr Mullin, who set about proving the innocence of the six by finding the real bombers, had to be escorted from the inquest by security staff and police.
The jury said a coded telephone warning by the IRA to the Birmingham Post and Mail at 8.11pm, seven minutes before the first explosion, was wholly inadequate. It gave the bomb locations as the Rotunda building and the nearby tax office in New Street, but made no mention of the pubs.
The panel also found there was “not sufficient evidence” of any failings, errors or omissions by West Midlands Police over its response to the bomb warning call or two alleged tip-offs giving advanced warning of the blasts.
Witness O named Seamus Mcloughlin, Mick Murray, Michael Hayes and James Francis Gavin as having been involved in the bombings. Mcloughlin, who was said to have planned the operation, died in 2014 and Gavin in 2002. Hayes has previously told the BBC that he took “collective responsibility” for the attacks.
Murray, who died in 1999, is said to have called in the botched warning.
The fresh inquest was ordered two years ago. The original hearing was opened and adjourned in 1974.