M62 coach bombing

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M62 coach bombing
Location M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England
Date February 4, 1974 (1974-02-04)
Attack type Time bomb
Deaths 12 (soldiers and their family members)
Injured 38 (soldiers and their family members)
Perpetrator(s) Unknown, Provisional IRA cited in the media, but not proven or admitted

The M62 coach bombing happened on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in England, when a bomb exploded in a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and family members. Twelve people were killed by the bomb, which consisted of 25lbs of high explosive hidden in a luggage locker on the coach.[1] Judith Ward's conviction for the incident was later overturned as wrongful. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was labelled as responsible by several news sources.

Contents

[edit] The bombing

The coach had been specially commissioned to carry British Army and Royal Air Force personnel on leave with their families from and to the bases at Catterick and Darlington during a period of industrial strike action on the trains. The vehicle had departed Manchester some time before, and was making good progress on the M62 motorway between Chain Bar, near Bradford, and Gildersome, Leeds, Yorkshire, when shortly before midnight a large explosion tore through it whilst most of those aboard were sleeping. The blast, which could be heard several miles away, reduced the coach to a "tangle of twisted metal" and threw body parts up to 250 yards.[2]

The explosion killed eleven people outright and wounded over fifty others, one of whom died four days later. Amongst the dead were two soldiers from the Royal Artillery, three from the Royal Corps of Signals and three from the 2nd battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. One of the latter was Corporal Clifford Houghton, whose entire family consisting of his wife Linda and his sons Lee (5) and Robert (2) also died. Numerous others suffered severe injuries, including a six year old boy who was badly burned.[2]

There is a memorial to those who were killed, situated in the entrance hall of the westbound section of the Hartshead Moor Motorway service area, which was used as a first aid station for those wounded in the blast.[3]

[edit] Reaction

Reactions in Britain were furious, with senior politicians from all parties calling for immediate action against the perpetrators and the IRA in general.[4] The British media were equally condemnatory; according to The Guardian, it was "the worst IRA outrage on the British mainland" at that time,[5] whilst the BBC have described it as "one of the IRA's worst mainland terror attacks".[3] The Irish Sunday Business Post has described it as the "worst" of the "awful atrocities perpetrated by the IRA" during this period.[6]

The attack's most lasting consequence was the adoption of much stricter anti-terrorism laws in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, allowing police to hold those suspected of terrorism for up to seven days without charge, and to deport those suspected of terrorism in Britain or the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland to face trial, where special courts judged with separate rules on terrorism suspects.[7]

[edit] Prosecution

Suspicions immediately fell upon the IRA, which was in the midst of an armed campaign in Britain involving numerous operations, including the Guildford pub bombing and the Birmingham pub bombings. The IRA has never officially accepted responsibility for the explosion, although sources including the BBC, The Guardian newspaper, the Irish Sunday Business Post and the CAIN database, consider it to be the perpetrator.[8] [9] [5] [6] [10]

Following the explosion, the British public and politicians from all three major parties called for swift justice.[4] The ensuing police investigation was rushed, careless and ultimately forged, resulting in the arrest of the mentally ill Judith Ward who claimed to have conducted a string of bombings in Britain in 1973 and 1974 and to have married and had a baby with two separate IRA members. Despite her retraction of these claims,[9] there being no corroborating evidence against her and serious gaps in her testimony; which was frequently rambling, incoherent and 'improbable',[11] she was wrongfully convicted in November 1974. The case against her was almost completely based on inaccurate scientific evidence using the Griess test and deliberate manipulation of her confession by some of the investigating team involved.[4] The case was similar to those of the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven which occurred at the same time and involved similar forged confessions and inaccurate scientific analysis. Judith Ward was finally released in 1992, when three appeal court judges voted unanimously that her conviction was 'a grave miscarriage of justice' and that it had been 'secured by ambush'.[12] The true culprits have never been discovered.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Also described as a 50lb bomb in Lost Lives 2007 ed, p.434, ISBN 978-1-84018-504-1
  2. ^ a b P.240, Williams & Head
  3. ^ a b BBC Bradford and West Yorkshire, 'Tragedy on the M62', retrieved February 28, 2007
  4. ^ a b c P.241, Williams & Head
  5. ^ a b Guardian Unlimited, 'Miscarriages of justice', retrieved February 28, 2007
  6. ^ a b Sunday Business Post, 'Her body simply disintegrated in our arms . . .', 14 December 2003, retrieved February 28, 2007
  7. ^ P.245 Williams & Head
  8. ^ P.238, Williams & Head
  9. ^ a b BBC On This Day, '1974: Soldiers and children killed in coach bombing', retrieved February 27, 2007
  10. ^ CAIN database, Chronology of the Conflict - 1974, retrieved on 28 February 2007
  11. ^ In the words of her solicitor Andrew Rankin QC, P.242 Williams & Head
  12. ^ P.244 Williams & Head

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Anne Williams & Vivian Head (2006). Terror Attacks: The Violent Expression of Desperation - IRA Coach Bomb. Futura. ISBN 0-708807-83-6. 

[edit] External links