The "Birmingham Six" were famously, and rightly, absolved of any complicity in the horrendous 1974 bombing of two pubs in Birmingham, England, in which 21 people died and scores of people suffered terrible injury. Their appeals against their convictions, their release and their subsequent struggle to receive adequate compensation after 16 years of unjust incarceration have been well documented in the press, in books and films, and in numerous TV documentaries. The police who falsified evidence have also received scrutiny, admonishment and belated punishment in similarly well-documented processes.

But what of the actual perpetrators? As with the equally horrendous Dublin bombings from earlier that same year there has been a noticeable reticence on the part of successive governments, both in the UK and Ireland, to identify and publicly call to account the individuals who so callously destroyed the lives of so many people on that bleak November night.

The IRA consistently refused to acknowledge responsibility for the crime, and while this may indicate no involvement on their part there have been sufficient private admissions - even directly to some of the victims - over the years to cast serious doubt on this plea of innocence, whether or not the perpetrators were acting in a maverick capacity or under orders from their superiors. In these post Peace Agreement years, when we are meant to be embracing an attitude of reconciliation and amnesty, where have the official authorities stood on this issue? Why, instead of pursuing the truth of the issue with as much zeal as was recently shown in calling the British Army's role in Bloody Sunday to task, do we get instead a plea from David Cameron to the Birmingham victims to "move on" and apparently forget the whole issue? Why, in this case, are we to conveniently drop the first part of "truth and reconciliation" in the vain hope that the latter can be achieved without the former?

Do the victims not deserve better especially, and not in spite of, having waited 37 years for recognition of their very real plight?

I suspect the police, as in certain other high-profile cases, were so convinced they had the right men that, if they didn't actually falsify the evidence, they made no attempt at the time to gather evidence which didn't support their view. By the time the B6's guilt was seriously called into question, it was too late - any evidence had been destroyed, either by the perpetrators, or by the passage of time.

This may be true. But it does not explain the reticence to investigate, using whatever means are still feasible. Investigative journalism in Ireland, for example, has gone a long way towards arriving at the truth of what lay behind the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 1974. So much so that it at least prompted an extremely unwilling Irish government to alter its stance on revealing what it did know, and had actually known since then. In that case the perpetrators are now deceased and the scope for prosecution is almost nil. But at least the victims have closure, if they require it, or even vastly improved grounds for pursuing compensation which previously had been so perniciously denied them.

The victims in Birmingham, thanks to Cameron and absolutely every one of his predecessors, have nothing.

I think that the British Government just want to forget the whole episode of Northern Ireland and are very reluctant to stir anything up in case more questions are raised about other issues and they have to pay any more out. I lived in the Birmingham area when the bombings occurred and I don't remember there being any doubt as to which organization had done this, however, public feelings were running so high afterwards that I think the police just went with prosecuting the most convenient Irishmen they could find to relieve the pressure they were under.

I have wondered about this myself, as every other 'atrocity' has been picked over by 'experts' who soon revealed the 'inside story'. Certainly when the B6 were released, I do not remember any vows from the West Midlands Police to 'leave no stone unturned' to find the true perpetrators. I suspect Gilgamesh and Nan are not too far off the truth.

Similar things have happened in N.Ireland itself, where evidence was ignored or even 'lost' because 'everyone knew' who dunnit. The more interesting thing is the reporters - in Ireland, there is still a lot of copy in re-hashing old atrocities, but I suspect the British papers have lost interest in such things so long ago. It isn't a 'yoof' interest, and there were no celebrities involved.

I think many of such cases are sheer Politics?

If they weren't sure who did what, they'd cobble the round peg until it slotted into the square hole, and much propagandising was to be had?

As for that "never was a shoot-to-kill policy", forget it, according to a former member of the SAS, formely based in N.Ireland, in his book 'Nemesis File'.

Ok - which answers the question why convictions were secured in the first place. But I am asking why subsequent convictions, or even investigations (a la Bloody Sunday) haven't been conducted?

Well regarding convictions I would imagine that as forensic science was in its infancy then and no-one had heard of DNA etc, any hard evidence was probably so contaminated by handling that it would be useless now. Perhaps one of the reasons there has been no investigations is that any enquiry would end up being so critical of the police actions that it may be considered counter-productive by the Government and so they would rather just sweep it under the nearest convenient carpet. That of course does not mean that it is the right thing to do just the most politically expedient which normally wins out in these situations.

I imagine this is correct.

However then there is the quandary presented by the same institutions' apparent determination to arrive at the truth of other atrocities, such as the hugely expensive and time-consuming Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday, which at least gave the Derry people an opportunity to draw a line under their torment and move on from their portracted, but now publicly acknowledged and explained, grief. Why are the Birmingham equivalent told on the other hand to "shut up and move on" instead?

My question is not about primitive forensics, or extant evidence, or indeed police stupidity or corruption. All these elements are recognised in this case and are a stumbling block to arriving at a belated truth. Of course they are. But this is true of a lot of these cold cases, and whether they resulted in miscarriages or simply neglect of justice, they have been re-opened and the truth pursued while there are still protagonists enough alive to aid the inquiry. Why not so in Birmingham? What separates Birmingham from the others?

I am sorry if I did not quite get the gist of your question Nordmann.

Could it be that with the Bloody Sunday and other atrocities no convictions or proper enquiries had ever taken place and so the victims and communities had always had a sense of grievance and understandable pain over these unresolved matters and indeed falsly laid blame for the actions.

In the case of Birmingham, there was a resolution to the case, even though it eventually proved to be wrong and so the community and families had already moved on with their lives and there is much less appetite to reopen old wounds?

I may be completely wrong of course, wouldn't be the first time!

Well, Bloody Sunday had also been "concluded" years ago with the Widgery Report, which had exonerated the British Army at the time and was meant to be the end of the affair as far as the British authorities were concerned - the resolution, as it were. The Saville Inquiry blew Widgery out of the water and revealed it for what it was, a cover-up. The aggrieved families had always known this was the case, as you say, just as the Birmingham victims knew that their assailants were never the guys incarcerated for the crime.

When Chris Mullin researched his book in the 1980s, the one which was instrumental in first raising general awareness of the Birmingham Six's innocence, he availed of a lot of prior research conducted by these families, so in that respect both they and the Derry families were at that time undergoing the same problems and both were attempting the same methods of resolving them (and meeting the same stone wall in their efforts). Somehow in the meantime a disparity has arisen in terms of establishment recognition of the merits of one group's right to closure against the other.

Incidentally, back in 1976 when the Birmingham arrestees attempted their first appeal, it was summarily thrown out of court by the president of the Court of Appeal - one Lord Widgery CJ.

I found this:



http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-mail-indepth/birmingham-pub-bombings/birmingham-pub-bombings-news/2009/11/22/birmingham-pub-bombings-tory-leader-plays-down-new-hunt-hopes-97319-25226053/

Following the decision in June to hold inquests, a pre-inquest hearing is set for later this month. As yet, however, nothing is listed on the Birmingham Coroner's schedule. Watch this space.

The victims' families as yet have no assurance that their legal representation will be funded or even partially funded by the state, as will that of the police and other involved parties (including, it seems, that of any ex-paramilitary "witnesses" subpoenaed by the state). Their existing legal team - Belfast based KRW Law - have been operating pro bono but are just not equipped to continue this if a full-blown inquest on a par with Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday, or even the Guildford Four inquests transpires.

Amber Rudd - she who gets so emotional about "foreign" cheese but is reticent to comment on much else - is unfortunately the Home Secretary charged with assuring the victims' families that they will not be ignored within or even victimised yet again by the judicial process. An inquest which proceeds as things stand in that respect will be worse than a cover-up and forty years of just pretending the issue had been resolved. It will potentially exonerate evil people of blame and subject people who have endured four decades of injustice and pain to outright disdain, humiliation, and having to swallow the cruel but inescapable conclusion that the state, for all its rhetoric, cares as little about them as the original bombers did.

A good article in today's Observer based on an interview with Julie Hambleton, sister of one of the victims.

I saw from reading it that I got Rudd and Truss mixed up in my earlier comment, though maybe I can be forgiven as they both come across as interchangeably insensitive and dismissive tossers anyway.

I have nothing but admiration for Julie Hambleton - I remember hearing the radio interview referred to in the article and was so glad she voiced verbatim my own reaction when I'd heard Kieran Conway's unbelievable defence of the bombers.

Fair play to Roy Wood and the other Birmingham singers for doing their bit now too so these families can hopefully afford legal representation at the upcoming inquiry. It's a sad indictment of modern Britain that Wizzard, Slade and the ELO have to be taken out of mothballs to effect social justice while the people charged with upholding law and order claim their diaries are too full even to hear an argument that they quite possibly are not doing their jobs.

With just a few days to go before the inquest is set to start, and with the Midlands Police having just admitted that they have set aside £1m to cover their anticipated legal costs (taxpayers' money), the government as yet to estimate their own provision (from taxpayers' money), the Justice Minister [sic] Liz Truss has reiterated that the relatives of the victims cannot be represented at the inquest by KRW Law unless KRW do it for free (an option which would effectively bankrupt the law firm). Truss's reason is that KRW is registered in Northern Ireland, and not England or Wales, so therefore are not entitled to state subsidy. She has reiterated also that KRW could contract the job out to an agency, something that both KRW and available law firms registered in the UK have already pursued and found unfeasible, all parties concluding that the subsidy on offer would not even begin to address the cost of vicarious representation of this nature (unprecedented in British legal history) in which the victims' relatives' appointed legal representation could not even attend court in an official capacity and would have to duplicate and relay all efforts through an agent drafted in at the eleventh hour.

She submitted her conclusion in the form of a letter sent to KRW, but simultaneously copied to the Trinity Mirror Group so that it effectively served as a press release. In other words she intended the victims' families should find out about this first from the news media and not from their legal team, a gross discourtesy to put it mildly, but generally indicative of the way the UK government has so far treated them.

KRW in response have reiterated their point that a Hillsborough-type arrangement, so far dismissed out of hand by Truss & Co, has yet to be exhausted as a possibility.

In the meantime the CD mentioned above was launched at an event attended by Jasper Carrot. It cannot hope to raise enough money which could be put to practical use in the case as a contribution to legal fees so is being issued to raise public awareness of the victims' families' plight, the monetary proceeds going to a local hospice. No disrespect to Mr Carrot, but if anything illustrates the desperate plight of the families at this point in time ...

As things stand therefore the inquest is set to begin with everyone but the families being represented to the tune of several millions pounds of British taxpayers' money and the families as yet not even having a legal representative with the authority to set foot in court, let alone access to public funding.

Three days ago was the anniversary of the atrocity. Birmingham City Council, as a mark of commemoration and solidarity with the families, has announced that the victims will receive a posthumous award of the Freedom of Birmingham at a special ceremony to be held in the new year. I'm sure this gesture will be greatly appreciated by those affected, but in practical terms this probably ranks in terms of futility with Jasper Carrot, Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne' CD as an indication of just how impotent and tragically isolated the people of Birmingham, and especially the families, are now feeling.

The rest of the citizens of the UK, it would appear from the media, are by and large blissfully unaware of this second gross injustice being perpetrated on these people in their name.

Well, this British citizen (or should I say subject) was unaware but unsurprised about this. As you pointed out, media coverage has been nonexistent and googling could only bring up a brief mention on the regional page of the BBC website; adding in the name of the lawyers who have been granted legal aid to represent one family produced little more except for the article in the Irish Times and in i News.

It's a bloody disgrace but just one more example of the god-awful state we are in: a cabinet full of 'useful idiots' and malevolent manipulators and a press mostly concerned with telling us that Brexit will be just great while garnering clickbait to boost their advertising revenue with rabble-rousing crap and drivel.

Didn't MM say there were some caves available for occupation near him?