[4] In 2017, one of the alleged perpetrators, Michael Hayes, also claimed that the intention of the bombings had not been to harm civilians, and that their deaths had been caused by an unintentional delay in delivering an advance telephone warning to security services.

[16] On 14 November, James McDade, a 28-year-old UK-based member of the Provisional IRA, was killed in a premature explosion as he attempted to plant a bomb at a telephone exchange and postal sorting office in Coventry.

[29]) A similar warning was also sent to the Birmingham Evening Mail newspaper, with the anonymous caller(s) again giving the code word, but again failing to name the public houses in which the bombs had been planted.

At 20:17, six minutes after the first telephone warning had been delivered to the Birmingham Post, the bomb—which had been concealed inside either a duffel bag or briefcase located close to the rear entrance to the premises—exploded, devastating the pub.

[46] Rescue efforts at the Tavern in the Town were initially hampered as the bomb had been placed at the base of a set of stairs descending from the street which had been destroyed in the explosion,[26] and the premises had been accessible solely via this entrance.

The victims whose bodies had been blown through a brick wall and wedged between the rubble and underground electric cables took up to three hours to recover, as recovery operations were delayed until the power could be isolated.

[32] Prior to the arrival of ambulances, rescue workers removed critically injured casualties from each scene upon makeshift stretchers constructed from devices such as tabletops and wooden planks.

This motion drew the support of more than 200 MPs,[73] although the majority of those in Parliament voted against the restoration of the death penalty,[74] reportedly in part due to fear that such a move could have encouraged the IRA to use children to plant bombs.

At 19:55 on 21 November (scarcely 20 minutes before the first bomb had exploded), five men—Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—had boarded a train at Birmingham New Street station.

Similar assaults were committed upon Power, Hunter, Hill and, to a lesser degree, McIlkenny;[90] the officers who administered these beatings took great care to avoid marking the men's faces.

This confession was extracted after Power had been subjected to extreme physical and psychological abuse, which included repeated kicking in the stomach, head and legs, dragging by the hair, and the stretching of his scrotum.

[93] At 22:45 that evening, Hugh Callaghan was arrested at his home in Birmingham and driven to Sutton Coldfield police station, where he was briefly questioned before being detained in a cell overnight, but intentionally denied sleep.

As had been the case with William Power while detained at Morecambe police station, the three men later claimed that, before and during their transfer to Birmingham, officers had coerced them into signing these confessions through severe physical, psychological and emotional abuse.

This mistreatment included beatings, deprivation of food and sleep, being subject to mock executions, intimidation, being burned with lit cigarettes,[55] and being forced to stand or squat in various stress positions.

Also to stand trial with the Birmingham Six were three men: Mick Murray (a known member of the Provisional IRA who had previously been convicted of a separate charge of conspiracy to cause explosions), James Francis Gavin (a.k.a.

[108] Skuse testified as to his conducting Griess tests upon the hands of the six men following their arrest, stating as to his being 99% certain that both Hill and Power had handled explosive materials, and to a possibility Walker may also have done so.

[88] This testimony was refuted by Dr. Hugh Kenneth Black, a former Chief Inspector of Explosives for the Home Office, who testified that a range of innocuous substances and objects one could handle on a daily basis containing nitrocellulose (such as varnishes and paints) would produce a positive result to a Griess test.

In addressing the defendants' assertions as to physical and psychological abuse while in the custody of both constabularies, Judge Bridge concluded: "These investigations both at Morecambe and Birmingham were carried out with scrupulous propriety by all your officers".

[55] Two years later, in November 1978, the Birmingham Six were granted legal aid to sue the Lancashire and West Midlands Police forces, and the Home Office, through the Court of Appeal in relation to the injuries they had suffered in custody.

Peirce also encouraged Hill and his co-accused to continue to compile evidence attesting to their innocence and to write to media personnel such as journalist Chris Mullin, and politicians such as Sir John Farr in an effort to garner support for a review of their case.

[120] In 1985, the current affairs news programme World in Action presented the first of six episodes focusing upon the Birmingham pub bombings which seriously challenged the validity of the convictions of the six men.

[125] In 1986, British Labour politician and journalist Chris Mullin published Error of Judgement: Truth About the Birmingham Bombings, which provided further evidence that the men had been wrongly convicted.

[128] At this hearing, the defence counsels argued that the Birmingham Six were victims of a gross miscarriage of justice, that they had been convicted upon unreliable forensic evidence, and that the signed confessions were contradictory and had been obtained under extreme physical and mental duress.

The tests conducted by Skuse upon the defendants' hands for nitroglycerine were deemed by the three Court of Appeal judges as being particularly unreliable and "demonstrably wrong ... even by the state of forensic science in 1974".

Upon announcing his intention to withdraw the convictions, Lord Justice Lloyd informed the Birmingham Six: "In the light of the fresh evidence which has been made available since the last hearing in this court, your appeals will be allowed and you are free to go.

At this meeting, the Chief Constable of the West Midlands informed the campaigners that 35 pieces of evidence from the original 1974 inquiry were now missing, including the bomb which had been discovered at Hagley Road and safely destroyed in a controlled explosion.

This petition was signed by four retired West Midlands Police officers, and by Patrick Hill, who wrote of his desire that a fresh inquiry would "establish the true circumstances of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, and to order the release of all government, police, and Crown papers related to the case in order to bring truth and justice for the 21 innocent people who died, the 182 people who were injured, for the six innocent men who were wrongfully convicted, and for the families of all those affected.

Commissioned by the Birmingham Irish Association and designed by a local artist named Anuradha Patel, this memorial consists of three steel trees, and is located outside the city's New Street Station.

[181] Several survivors and relatives of those killed in the Birmingham pub bombings have visited the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in the Republic of Ireland in an effort to come to terms with the events of 21 November 1974.

The film casts John Hurt as Mullin and Martin Shaw as Granada Television World in Action producer and fellow researcher Ian McBride, as they investigate the convictions of the "Birmingham Six.