Judges uphold decision not to include investigations into who was behind 1974 bombings

Suspects in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings are not due to be named at the victims’ inquests after judges upheld a coroner’s decision to leave out of the proceedings any investigations into who was responsiblefor the attack.

The lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, and two other judges, ruled on Wednesday that the coroner, Sir Peter Thornton QC, had made no error of law in reaching his decision not to name the IRA unit allegedly responsible.

Bereaved families described feeling as if they had been “punched in the stomach” and vowed to continue to fight for “truth, justice and accountability”.

This week’s court of appeal proceedings followed a high court ruling in January quashing Thornton’s original decision. At that point, the coroner was ordered to reconsider the scope of the inquests after a successful judicial review action by the bereaved.

But, this week, Burnett, Lady Justice Hallett and Lord Justice McCombe ruled his decision was “not open to legal objection”.

Speaking near a memorial to the victims in the grounds of Birmingham’s Anglican cathedral, members of the campaign group, Justice4the21, said they were seeking legal advice with a view to an appeal.

“Without the perpetrator issue being a part of the scope [of the inquest] how can you ever possibly finish the jigsaw? You have got a major part of it missing,” said Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was 18 years old when she was killed in the bombings. “We feel as though we’ve been punched in the stomach again. What we do we do for 21 people who aren’t here to do it for themselves. They don’t have a voice, they don’t have a physical presence, but we do so we are their voice.

She added: “We are clearly very disappointed and we feel rejected but we will continue to fight for truth, justice and accountability.”

The bombings in two city centre pubs, widely believed to be the work of the IRA, happened on 21 November 1974, and killed 21 people and injured 182. It was the deadliest peacetime attack in the UK at the time.

Six men, known as the Birmingham Six, were imprisoned for the murders and served 17 years behind bars, in one of Britain’s most infamous miscarriages of justice, before their convictions were quashed.

Five West Midlands police officers were charged with perverting the course of justice in connection with the original criminal investigation but a judge ruled in 1993 that a fair trial would be impossible.