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Ministers have decided against launching a public investigation into the Provisional IRA's 1974-era Birmingham city bar bombings.

This Horrific Attack

On 21 November 1974, 21 individuals were lost their lives and 220 injured when explosive devices were detonated at the Mulberry Bush pub and Tavern in the Town pub venues in Birmingham, in an incident commonly accepted to have been orchestrated by the IRA.

Judicial Consequences

Nobody has been sentenced for the bombings. Back in 1991, 6 defendants had their guilty verdicts reversed after spending over 16 years in prison in what remains one of the worst errors of justice in British history.

Relatives Push for Truth

Families have for decades fought for a public inquiry into the explosions to uncover what the state was aware of at the moment of the incident and why nobody has been held accountable.

Government Decision

The security minister, Dan Jarvis, announced on recently that while he had sincere empathy for the loved ones, the government had concluded “after detailed review” it would not authorize an inquiry.

Jarvis stated the authorities considers the newly established commission, created to examine deaths associated with the Troubles, could examine the Birmingham attacks.

Activists React

Campaigner Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the attacks, said the announcement demonstrated “the government don't care”.

The sixty-two-year-old has long pushed for a national inquiry and said she and other bereaved families had “no intention” of engaging in the new body.

“There is no real independence in the panel,” she said, adding it was “equivalent to them assessing their own homework”.

Calls for Evidence Disclosure

Over the years, grieving relatives have been calling for the disclosure of files from intelligence agencies on the event – especially on what the state was aware of prior to and after the incident, and what information there is that could result in arrests.

“The entire state apparatus is resisting our relatives from ever knowing the truth,” she declared. “Exclusively a legally mandated judge-directed national inquiry will give us access to the papers they state they don’t have.”

Official Powers

A legally mandated public inquiry has particular legal powers, encompassing the power to require participants to attend and disclose evidence connected to the investigation.

Prior Inquest

An inquest in 2019 – campaigned for grieving relatives – ruled the victims were murdered by the Provisional IRA but did not determine the identities of those culpable.

Hambleton said: “Intelligence agencies advised the coroner at the time that they have zero records or documentation on what continues to be Britain's longest unsolved mass murder of the 20th century, but currently they intend to push us to engage of this new commission to disclose evidence that they assert has not been present”.

Official Criticism

Liam Byrne, the Member of Parliament for Hodge Hill and Solihull North, described the cabinet's ruling as “profoundly unsatisfactory”.

Through a statement on social media, Byrne stated: “Following so much time, so much pain, and so many disappointments” the loved ones deserve a process that is “impartial, judicially directed, with comprehensive capabilities and unafraid in the quest for the reality.”

Enduring Pain

Discussing the families' persistent pain, Hambleton, who chairs the Justice 4 the 21, stated: “No relative of any atrocity of any sort will ever have resolution. It doesn’t exist. The suffering and the anguish remain.”