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Authorities have ruled out initiating a open inquiry into the Provisional IRA's 1974 Birmingham city pub bombings.

This Horrific Event

Back on 21 November 1974, 21 people were lost their lives and two hundred twenty hurt when bombs were set off at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town establishments in Birmingham, in an assault largely thought to have been planned by the Irish Republican Army.

Legal Aftermath

No one has been found guilty over the bombings. In 1991, 6 defendants had their convictions quashed after serving more than 16 years in detention in what is considered one of the most severe failures of the legal system in United Kingdom history.

Relatives Campaign for Justice

Families have for years pushed for a public inquiry into the bombings to uncover what the authorities knew at the time of the event and why not a single person has been held accountable.

Official Response

The security minister, Dan Jarvis, said on recently that while he had sincere sympathy for the relatives, the government had decided “after detailed review” it would not establish an investigation.

Jarvis said the administration believes the reconciliation commission, established to look into fatalities related to the Troubles, could look into the Birmingham bombings.

Advocates React

Campaigner Julie Hambleton, whose teenage sister Maxine was lost her life in the attacks, commented the decision showed “the administration are indifferent”.

The sixty-two-year-old has for decades pushed for a public investigation and said she and other bereaved relatives had “no desire” of taking part in the new body.

“There’s no real autonomy in the commission,” she remarked, adding it was “tantamount to them grading their own homework”.

Requests for Evidence Release

For decades, bereaved families have been requesting the release of documents from security services on the incident – especially on what the authorities was aware of before and after the bombing, and what evidence there is that could bring about legal action.

“The entire state apparatus is resisting our families from ever learning the truth,” she declared. “Exclusively a official judicial public probe will grant us access to the files they state they do not possess.”

Official Authority

A statutory public inquiry has particular judicial capabilities, encompassing the authority to compel witnesses to attend and disclose evidence related to the inquiry.

Prior Hearing

An hearing in 2019 – campaigned for grieving relatives – ruled the those killed were illegally slain by the Provisional IRA but did not establish the names of those accountable.

Hambleton said: “Intelligence agencies advised the then coroner that they have zero documents or evidence on what continues to be the UK's most prolonged open atrocity of the last century, but currently they intend to force us to participate of this new commission to provide details that they state has never existed”.

Political Criticism

Liam Byrne, the MP for the Birmingham area, labeled the administration's ruling as “deeply, deeply unsatisfactory”.

Through a message on social media, Byrne said: “After such a long period, such immense grief, and numerous let-downs” the families deserve a procedure that is “independent, court-supervised, with complete authorities and courageous in the pursuit for the reality.”

Ongoing Sorrow

Speaking of the family’s ongoing pain, Hambleton, who heads the campaign group, remarked: “No relative of any tragedy of any type will ever have resolution. It doesn’t exist. The pain and the grief continue.”