Birmingham pub bombings - 37 years ago today

[Chindie]

IIRC my dad was supposed to be in one of the pubs that night with a mate, but they decided against it last minute.

[TheDrums]

Pro-IRA songs are sung at Parkhead, and British forces are booed by the Celtic support.

And people in our city still wear the shirt that is a symbol of the murderous bastards that did this to innocent people on a night out.

It's a shame that Chris Mullin had no interest in justice for the victims.

Pro-IRA songs are sung at Parkead because Loyalist songs are sung at Ibrox and vice versa.

Two vile clubs. Although Lennon has demanded they stop singing IRA songs along with the Celtic board.

Two clubs I would love to see the end of. Nasty people who think too much of their clubs. Everything that is wrong with humanity.

[TheDrums]

EDIT see above

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

Also I think its appaling that in nearly 40 years they have ever been able to succesfully convict anyone.

If it was in London I think the result would have been a bit different, they would have found someone else for it. As it's brum they probably don't care.

There are not many bombings in history of that size in the UK where the killers were never caught.

[bickster]

Also I think its appaling that in nearly 40 years they have ever been able to succesfully convict anyone.

If it was in London I think the result would have been a bit different, they would have found someone else for it. As it's brum they probably don't care.

There are not many bombings in history of that size in the UK where the killers were never caught.

The location was of little importance, some of the Guilford 4 and the Maguire 7 were supposedly responsible for the Woolwich Pub bombing as well as the Guilford bombings, no one was ever convicted of that either, even though the cell responsible for the Balcombe St seige claimed to the police and during their own trial that they were responsible.

Not sure anyone was ever convicted of the later Warrington bombings either

[thetrees]

Also I think its appaling that in nearly 40 years they have ever been able to succesfully convict anyone.

i find it hard to believe that the british government dont know who did it. they probably do but for some reason or another see it best not to arrest those responsible.

Double jeopardy?

[bickster]

Also I think its appaling that in nearly 40 years they have ever been able to succesfully convict anyone.

i find it hard to believe that the british government dont know who did it. they probably do but for some reason or another see it best not to arrest those responsible.

Double jeopardy?

You'd don't really believe that do you? It's rather silly if you do imo.

[Paddywhack]

After seeing this thread, I've spent the whole morning reading about the bombings having not really known much about it before. I was shocked to read that a bomb that didn't detonate was planted on the Hagley Road, literally outside my work

I've just been reading this account of one of the fire fighters that night http://birmingham999.co.uk/ (...erm...it's a pretty short link anyway..)

I always find it heart warming how people pull together and help each other out in situations like this, putting their own safety at risk. I also find comfort in the fact good people far outweigh the amount of evil people on this planet

[thetrees]

Also I think its appaling that in nearly 40 years they have ever been able to succesfully convict anyone.

i find it hard to believe that the british government dont know who did it. they probably do but for some reason or another see it best not to arrest those responsible.

Double jeopardy?

You'd don't really believe that do you? It's rather silly if you do imo.

It was a question, not a statement.

If no other lines were pursued then it could be that they knew that they had the right people. Obviously the actions of elements of WMP made sure that the convictions were eventually deemed unsafe.

As I stated before, we shall never know.

[wedge]

A large proportion of Celtic's support are scum, it gives me great pleasure whenever they fail...

[b6bloke]

Sorry about my delayed reply Pete. You have a point but I think what I was trying to get across (poor attempt) was that we will never know if they were guilty as the police messed up and fabricated so much the conviction was unsafe. I would still not rule them out. I have heard things off people who know a couple of them but I think it wise not to mention on an open forum.

I remember when the Gibraltar shootings happend, the uproar that followed as it transpired they did not have any remote controled devices or guns on them. They found a car full of Semtex so they were up to no good but there was still uproar! If you call yourself an Army wear a uniform you cowards.

Operation Flavius was the name given to an operation by a Special Air Service (SAS) team in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988 tasked to prevent a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attack. The IRA Active Service Unit's (ASU) members, Danny McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell, conspired to detonate a car bomb where a military band assembled for the weekly changing of the guard at the governor’s residence. Although the operation was meant to be an arrest operation,it ended with all three members of the ASU dead.

The IRA members planned to hide the bomb in a car to kill the band members of the Royal Anglian Regiment that would assemble for the parade.To ensure a parking space in the busy town area, it was necessary to occupy it on the preceding Sunday.

The SAS team was informed that the IRA had already placed their bomb and were ready to detonate it. The three conspirators were stopped as they walked near the Shell filling station in Winston Churchill Avenue, the busy main road leading to the airport and the frontier with Spain. McCann was then shot as the SAS claimed he made an 'aggressive move' towards a bag he was carrying. They stated that he was intending to trigger a car bomb using a remote control device. After McCann was killed, it was claimed that Farrell made a move towards her handbag and was shot on similar grounds. SAS members again claimed that Savage moved his hand to his pocket and the SAS killed him also

McCann was shot five times, Farrell eight times, and Savage between 16 and 18 times. All three were subsequently found to be unarmed, and without any kind of remote trigger. Materials for a bomb, including 64 kg of Semtex, were later found by the Spanish police in a car in Marbella, 46 miles away in Spain, identified by keys found in Farrell's handbag.

[peterms]

Sorry about my delayed reply Pete. You have a point but I think what I was trying to get across (poor attempt) was that we will never know if they were guilty as the police messed up and fabricated so much the conviction was unsafe. I would still not rule them out. I have heard things off people who know a couple of them but I think it wise not to mention on an open forum.

The police messed up in the Stephen Lawrence case, by first failing to treat the attack as racist (thereby failing to pursue lines of inquiry which hopefully would be tackled quickly nowadays), then by mislabelling forensic evidence so that it was not connected with the suspects until after the case was found not guilty. That's messing up. Incompetence, and possibly lack of interest or zeal for racist reasons.

In the case of the 6, it's not messing up, so much as illegally seeking to extract a confession by violence, combined with fabricating evidence. That's not messing up. That's malicious, perversion of the course of justice, and criminal. It's a real leap of the imagination to say that even though the case against them was clearly made up, they might have been the ones who did it anyway.

Seriously, would an IRA cell having done this then travel in a group the next day or so to Ireland to attend an IRA funeral? Anyone who's even seen one spy film or read one spy novel would know better.

Apparently they were IRA sympathisers, like a few people in Eire and about half the population of Boston, but to believe that they really were the ones who did it but were so stupid as to draw attention to themselves in this way but so clever as to leave no evidence whatever so that the police had to make it all up...well, it just doesn't work.

I remember when the Gibraltar shootings happend, the uproar that followed as it transpired they did not have any remote controled devices or guns on them. They found a car full of Semtex so they were up to no good but there was still uproar! If you call yourself an Army wear a uniform you cowards.

The uproar, as I recall, was not that the group weren't IRA, but that the soldiers had acted illegally and had made up the usual story about only shooting because they were going for weapons or remote control devices or were about to radio the mothership to blast mankind into oblivion. I don't recall talk of vaulting passenger barriers on the tube, running down escalators or wearing bulky unseasonal jackets with trailing electric leads, but apart from that it sounds drearily familiar as another pack of lies to cover up murder.

[Meath_Villan]

The wifes uncle was pulled from the rubble not sure what pub he suffered hearing problems most of his life, he wont talk about it...he still lives in brum

[TheDrums]

I remember when the Gibraltar shootings happend, the uproar that followed as it transpired they did not have any remote controled devices or guns on them. They found a car full of Semtex so they were up to no good but there was still uproar! If you call yourself an Army wear a uniform you cowards.

The PIRA did wear a uniform, as did the UVF, LVF, INLA, Red Hand Commanders, RIRA, CIRA. People that say they did not obviously do not know what they are talking about, no offence. If people are going to make statements like they are factual at least bother to research before hand. If they were on a "mission" they are hardly going to walk about with a balaclava, green army pullover, black trousers and steel toe cap boots in the middle of the day?

Then again plain clothes officers from the Parachute Regiment of the British Army murdered innocent Catholics in Derry on Bloody Sunday. "If you call yourself an Army wear a uniform you cowards."

And the British army were involved in the murder of Loyalists as well without wearing their uniform. Sure they openly gave information to the INLA about how to kill Loyalist godfather Billy Wright. I don't think you have any credibility lambasting folk for not wearing a uniform for crying out loud. Evil is evil, with or without the medals and silly hats. And you cannot talk about the PIRA, when it is well documented and known in Northern Ireland that the British army gave "Krip" McWilliams information on how to kill Billy Wright inside the Maze prison. Are they cowards as well? Killing a man behind bars? Or is that acceptable these days? :x They must be cowards. They killed. Just like the PIRA killed, or is one death more justified than another human beings life?

And as for the Birmingham bombings, the two main police officers who arrested the 6, and led the investigation were found guilty by a British court of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice, but they were never brought to trial over it. Why so? Its funny how that crucial bit was left out of this topic. Quietly brushed under the carpet. :|

[b6bloke]

I remember when the Gibraltar shootings happend, the uproar that followed as it transpired they did not have any remote controled devices or guns on them. They found a car full of Semtex so they were up to no good but there was still uproar! If you call yourself an Army wear a uniform you cowards.

The PIRA did wear a uniform, as did the UVF, LVF, INLA, Red Hand Commanders, RIRA, CIRA. People that say they did not obviously do not know what they are talking about, no offence. If people are going to make statements like they are factual at least bother to research before hand. If they were on a "mission" they are hardly going to walk about with a balaclava, green army pullover, black trousers and steel toe cap boots in the middle of the day?

Then again plain clothes officers from the Parachute Regiment of the British Army murdered innocent Catholics in Derry on Bloody Sunday. "If you call yourself an Army wear a uniform you cowards."

And the British army were involved in the murder of Loyalists as well without wearing their uniform. Sure they openly gave information to the INLA about how to kill Loyalist godfather Billy Wright. I don't think you have any credibility lambasting folk for not wearing a uniform for crying out loud. Evil is evil, with or without the medals and silly hats. And you cannot talk about the PIRA, when it is well documented and known in Northern Ireland that the British army gave "Krip" McWilliams information on how to kill Billy Wright inside the Maze prison. Are they cowards as well? Killing a man behind bars? Or is that acceptable these days? :x They must be cowards. They killed. Just like the PIRA killed, or is one death more justified than another human beings life?

And as for the Birmingham bombings, the two main police officers who arrested the 6, and led the investigation were found guilty by a British court of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice, but they were never brought to trial over it. Why so? Its funny how that crucial bit was left out of this topic. Quietly brushed under the carpet. :|

There is so much that we could go into and most likely double as much that we dont know that can be put against the British in wrong doing in NI including what happened at Croak Park but the IRA will always be scum to me, yes they had a cause but the amount of innocent civillians that died in the name of this cause was unacceptable and there had to be a better way.

[TheDrums]

I absolutely agree. It was innocent people more than anyone that hurt the most and still do.

I feel sorry for the people who will never get justice. Their pain must be unimaginable.

[Paddywhack]

I absolutely agree. It was innocent people more than anyone that hurt the most and still do.

I feel sorry for the people who will never get justice. Their pain must be unimaginable.

I can't even begin to imagine how people feel when they lose a loved one in these kind of circumstances, but I've often wondered how much of a difference it makes to them when those responsible are convicted and justice is served. You often see people on the news saying how they can now have some kind of closure and begin to grieve properly, but I can't imagine I would even begin to feel 0.0001% better. Hopefully I never have to find out. Unfortunately, I very much doubt the bastards that did this will ever caught.

My dad had just started college when the bombings happened. He said a kid came in the next day with a plaster on his eyebrow claiming he had been drinking in the Mullberry Bush when it went off. I giggled when he told me, which I don't think my dad was happy about. It's just I know exactly the kind of dickhead who would do that. There was a guy at our school you used to bop about and claimed it was because he had been in a bank raid and someone had shot a sawn off shotgun at his knee. He showed us a scar the size of a pinhead

[TheDrums]

Gladly all of these incidents and other murders so brutal and savage have been confined to history, hopefully. Its sad human beings could be so cruel to people they have never met before, simply because of where they were born.

[leemond2008]

I know that I'm resurrecting this thread but I thought it was worthy of it.

My Mom randomly stumbled across this earlier and clicked on it, the first voice you hear is my Mom directly after the bomb went off, she was 17 or 18 at the time, it shook her up to randomly hear it.

 

[Xela]

6 minutes ago, leemond2008 said:

I know that I'm resurrecting this thread but I thought it was worthy of it.

My Mom randomly stumbled across this earlier and clicked on it, the first voice you hear is my Mom directly after the bomb went off, she was 17 or 18 at the time, it shook her up to randomly hear it.

I can imagine it would have brought it all back. My parents were out in town that night, they were 22 and 20, Luckily they weren't at the venues bombed but they were pubs they had regularly been in before.