Birmingham pub bombing inquests resume after three-year delay

The inquests, first ordered in 2016, were delayed following a complaint from victims’ families about the coroner’s decision not to name the bombing suspects.

The High Court in London ruled in January 2018 that Sir Peter Thornton QC was wrong to restrict the scope of the inquests, but the finding was overturned by the Court of Appeal in September 2018.

The bombings on 21 November 1974, widely believed to have been a botched Provisional IRA operation, killed 21 people and injured 182 others.

Six men - the “Birmingham Six” - were arrested in the wake of the bombings and jailed for 16 years, before their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed in 1991.

The inquests are taking place in Birmingham.