ONE - What Happened?
The warning was hopelessly late and inadequate. But among the words uttered in a bomb threat phone call to a Birmingham Post and Mail switchboard operator was an IRA codeword - and police immediately knew this was the real deal.
The infamous phone call is logged at 8.11pm on Thursday, November 21, 1974 in the company's phone call log book.
Six minutes later The Mulberry Bush at the base of The Rotunda, which was heaving with pay day customers, was reduced to rubble.
Tremors from the blast were felt a few hundred yards away by a barman at The Tavern in The Town - and by Spike Milligan who paused and remarked on it while performing a one-man show at the Alexandra Theatre.
At 8.27pm, the Tavern, an underground bar which was very popular with young people, was hit.
The blast resulted in rubble falling on to the railway tracks at nearby New Street Station and the audience at The Odean Cinema, a few doors away, being showered with dust.
Many were killed instantly. Others, who were maimed or had severe burns, were carried from the rubble on makeshift stretchers of table tops and wooden planks, then ferried to local hospitals by taxi drivers as well as ambulance crews.
Surgeons worked throughout the night in a bid to save lives.
The death toll - 21 - made it the deadliest attack on the British mainland during The Troubles and the largest mass murder until the 7/7 bombings in in London in 2005.
Ten of the dead were from The Mulberry Bush and the remainder were in the Tavern. In addition 182 people were injured.
At 9.15pm a third bomb, concealed inside two plastic bags, was found in the doorway of a Barclays Bank in Hagley Road. It failed to explode and was dealt with in a controlled explosion.
The police would later - inexplicably - lose this vital piece of evidence.
TWO - The Birmingham Six
Six innocent Irishmen were arrested within hours of the blasts, and in 1975 sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombings.
The men - Hugh Callaghan, Paddy Joe Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker - became known as the Birmingham Six.
They maintained their innocence and insisted police had coerced them into signing false confessions through severe physical and psychological abuse.
Their conviction had also largely been due to the testimony the now disgraced Home Office forensic scientist Doctor Frank Skuse (right).
He carried out controversial Griess tests on the fingers of five of the the Birmingham Six, which he claimed indicated that two of them had handled explosives.
It was later demonstrated anyone handling playing cards such as those used by the men on a train journey from Birmingham, may produce similar results and Skuse's conclusions were shown to be flawed and totally discredited.
After 16 years in prison and a lengthy campaign which won supporters around the world, their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. The episode is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
Following the release of the Birmingham Six, West Midlands Police and the then-Director of Public Prosecutions, Barbara Mills, re-opened the investigation.
In October 1993, three former detectives said by the Court of Appeal to have lied to secure the wrongful conviction of the Birmingham Six walked free from the Old Bailey after a judge said they could not receive a fair trial.
Mr Justice Garland ruled that the volume and intensity of publicity surrounding case meant the Birmingham Six had become a synonym for false confession - the issue at the centre of the West Midlands officers' trial for perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
As the three, retired Detective Superintendent George Reade, Detective Sergeant Colin Morris and Detective Constable Terence Woodwiss, walked free from the court, expressing - through solicitors - gratitude to supporters, two of the Six expressed their 'disgust’.
THREE - LOst evidence & the cold shoulder
Families and supporters organised campaign group Justice4the21, which has been pressing for justice for those who died and for the truth about their relatives' deaths to be told.
In 2014 West Midlands Police concluded a two-year reassessment of the evidence.
Chief Constable Ron Hadfield (now Sir Ron) told the city unless new and significant information was forthcoming, there would be no further inquiry into the Birmingham pub bombings.
FOUR- the search for justice
Birmingham Mail news editor Andy Richards spotted a legal loophole which paved the way for new inquests. An inquest into the deaths was originally opened within a week of the attacks, but only the most preliminary stages were carried out, because the bungled criminal investigation was underway. (we have recent pic of the paper re the inquest being opened)
But when the wrongly convicted Birmingham Six were eventually released in 1991, one implication was that the truth about whether "necessary steps had been taken to protect life."
Birmingham Coroner Louise Hunt made this clear in June 2016 when she made the historic decision to agree to requests from the families to re-open the inquest.
She said:
"I have serious concerns that advanced notice of the bombs may have been available to the police, and they failed to take that."
BLUES & VILLA FANS SHOW THEIR SUPPORT AS A CITY UNITES
So far the eight families have been represented free of charge by Belfast-based lawyers KRW LAW LLP but after two years of pro-bono work, this is unsustainable.
While talks continue to secure funding, the current situation already places the families at great disadvantage – the legal team representing West Midlands Police has had five months to prepare, funded by £1 million of taxpayers’ money.
Justice4the21 spokeswoman Julie Hambleton says unless a way forward is found it may mean they have to walk out of the pre-inquest review hearing which will be held in Birmingham by former Chief Coroner for England and Wales, Peter Thornton QC on Monday, November 28.
