‘Cannot deliver the truth’: MP urges the Government to reconsider plans to not hold a Birmingham Pub Bombings public inquiry

Liam Byrne, MP for Hodge Hill and Solihull North, has written to the Minister for Security to reject the proposal that the Birmingham Pub Bombings be referred to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) rather than dealt with through a statutory public inquiry.

Mr Byrne has pressed the Minister to establish a judge-led statutory public inquiry into the Birmingham Pub Bombings under the 1995 Inquiries Act.

Mr Byrne said: “Having met with the Justice 4 the 21 families, I know that the Government’s proposed ICRIR simply cannot deliver the truth these families have sought for more than fifty years. As it stands, it is not fit for purpose.

“Only a proper judge-led inquiry can command the confidence of the families and finally confront the question that has haunted our city for half a century: Who bombed Birmingham?

“The families deserve nothing less.”

It is coming up to the 51st anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings were carried out on 21 November 1974.

The atrocity saw 21 people killed and 182 more injured when bombs exploded in two public houses in Birmingham city centre near the Bull Ring.

The Provisional IRA never officially admitted responsibility for the bombings, although a former senior officer of the organisation confessed to their involvement in 2014.

Six Irishmen were arrested within hours of the blasts and, in 1975, sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombings. The men — who became known as the Birmingham Six—maintained their innocence and insisted police had coerced them into signing false confessions through severe physical and psychological abuse. After 16 years in prison, and a lengthy campaign, their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory, and quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. The episode is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

Julie Hambleton of Justice 4 the 21, whose 18 year-old sister Maxine was one of those killed in the explosion, said: "We welcome the support of Liam Byrne MP. We endorse his call that the Government establish a statutory public inquiry into the Birmingham Pub Bombings of 1974. Only this mechanism can deliver to us truth, justice and accountability in accordance with the standards of investigations demanded by the European Convention on Human Rights.

“The Legacy Act cannot do that. The Troubles Bill will not do that. We will not engage - through coercion - with any state-sponsored mechanism of the Government apart from an independent human rights complaint inquiry in which we, as families, can effectively participate."