M62 coach bombing

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M62 coach bombing
Location	M62 motorway, Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Target(s)	Coach carrying soldiers to barracks
Date	February 4, 1974
Attack Type	time bomb
Fatalities	12
Injuries	38
Perpetrator(s)	Provisional Irish Republican Army

The M62 coach bombing occurred on the 4 February 1974, when a bomb, consisting of 25lbs of high explosive detonated in the luggage locker of a commercial coach travelling from Manchester along the M62 motorway between Chain Bar, near Bradford, and Gildersome, Leeds in Yorkshire. The coach was one of a number being used by British army personnel and their families due to industrial action on the trains.

The explosion occurred shortly after midnight, when most of those aboard the bus were asleep. The blast, which could be heard several miles away, killed or wounded all fifty people on board, throwing debris 250 yards. Many of those injured, and two of the dead, were children, mostly traveling to the army base at Catterick.

Suspicions immediately fell upon the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who were in the midst of a campaign of violence against the British mainland involving numerous attacks, such as the Guildford pub bombing and the Birmingham pub bombings. The Balcombe Street gang was also active at this time, although no evidence has implicated them in this attack. The IRA however have never officially accepted responsibility for the attack, although most sources consider them to be involved.

Following the explosion, which killed twelve, including one man who died four days later and a woman with two young children (all members of a family in which the soldier father was also killed), there was a rushed police investigation. This led to the mentally ill Judith Ward being wrongfully imprisoned in November 1974, based on inaccurate scientific evidence and deliberate manipulation of evidence by some of the investigating team involved. The case was remarkably similar to those of the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven which occurred at the same time. Judith Ward was finally released in 1992.

The nine soldiers killed in the blast were members of the Royal Artillery, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the Royal Corps of Signals.

There is a memorial to those who were killed in the entrance hall of the westbound section of the Hartshead Moor Motorway service area.