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Government officials have ruled out initiating a open probe into the IRA's 1974-era Birmingham city bar attacks.

This Horrific Event

On 21 November 1974, twenty-one individuals were killed and two hundred twenty hurt when explosive devices were detonated at the Mulberry Bush pub and Tavern in the Town pub venues in Birmingham, in an incident largely thought to have been planned by the IRA.

Legal Consequences

Not a single person has been convicted for the attacks. Back in 1991, six men had their guilty verdicts quashed after enduring over 16 years in jail in what is considered one of the gravest failures of justice in United Kingdom history.

Families Campaign for Answers

Relatives have long pushed for a national inquiry into the attacks to uncover what the state knew at the moment of the tragedy and why nobody has been held accountable.

Official Statement

The minister for security, Dan Jarvis, stated on Thursday that while he had profound empathy for the families, the administration had decided “after careful consideration” it would not commit to an inquiry.

Jarvis explained the government believes the reconciliation commission, established to investigate fatalities associated with the Northern Ireland conflict, could investigate the Birmingham attacks.

Activists Respond

Activist Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was murdered in the attacks, commented the announcement indicated “the administration are indifferent”.

The sixty-two-year-old has long campaigned for a public inquiry and stated she and other bereaved relatives had “no intention” of taking part in the investigative panel.

“There’s no genuine independence in the panel,” she said, noting it was “equivalent to them grading their own work”.

Requests for Evidence Disclosure

For years, bereaved families have been demanding the disclosure of documents from security services on the incident – especially on what the government was aware of prior to and after the bombing, and what proof there is that could bring about legal action.

“The entire UK government system is resisting our relatives from ever knowing the facts,” she said. “Only a statutory judge-led open investigation will grant us entry to the papers they state they do not possess.”

Official Capabilities

A statutory national investigation has particular judicial capabilities, such as the authority to require participants to appear and provide details associated with the investigation.

Prior Investigation

An investigation in 2019 – fought for grieving families – ruled the those killed were illegally slain by the Provisional IRA but did not determine the identities of those accountable.

Hambleton said: “Intelligence agencies advised the then coroner that they have no documents or documentation on what remains the UK's most prolonged unsolved atrocity of the 20th century, but currently they want to force us to participate of this investigative body to share evidence that they claim has not been present”.

Political Response

Liam Byrne, the Member of Parliament for the Birmingham area, described the administration's announcement as “deeply, deeply disheartening”.

In a announcement on Twitter, Byrne wrote: “After so much time, so much suffering, and so many let-downs” the families merit a mechanism that is “independent, judicially directed, with comprehensive authorities and unafraid in the search for the reality.”

Ongoing Pain

Discussing the families' enduring grief, Hambleton, who chairs the Justice 4 the 21, said: “Not a single family of any atrocity of any type will ever have peace. It doesn’t exist. The suffering and the grief persist.”