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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 Army personnel and family members. Twelve people were killed by the bomb, which consisted of 25lbs of high explosive detonated in a luggage locker of the coach. Judith Ward's conviction for the incident was later overturned as wrongful. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) were labelled as responsible by several news sources.

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.

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 1st battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. One of the latter was Corporal Clifford Haughton, 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. Linda's sister Anne later spoke of the event, commenting that "We've come to terms with it, but we'll never ever forgive, and never ever forget. It will be with me to the day I die, that morning" 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.

Reaction

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

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.

Prosecution

Suspicions immediately fell upon the IRA, who were in the midst of an armed campaign against the British mainland involving numerous operations, including 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 have 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 them to be the perpetrators.

Following the explosion, the British public and politicians from all three major parties called for swift justice. Unfortunately for all concerned, 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, there being no corroborating evidence against her and serious gaps in her testimony; which was frequently rambling, incoherent and 'improbable', 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. 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 scentific analysis. Judith Ward was finally released in 1992, when three appeal court judges voted unanimously that her convicton was 'a grave miscarriage of justice' and that it had been 'secured by ambush'. The true culprits have never been discovered.

Notes

1. ^ BBC On This Day, '1974: Soldiers and children killed in coach bombing', retrieved February 27, 2007
2. ^ P.240, Williams & Head
3. ^ P.241, Williams & Head
4. ^ BBC Bradford and West Yorkshire, 'Tragedy on the M62', retrieved February 28, 2007
5. ^ Guardian Unlimited, 'Miscarriages of justice', retrieved February 28, 2007
6. ^ 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. CAIN database, Chronology of the Conflict - 1974, retrieved on 28 February 2007
10. In the words of her solicitor Andrew Rankin QC, P.242 Williams & Head
11. P.244 Williams & Head

See Also

• List of terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom

References

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

External links

• BBC On this Day Article

• 1974 in England
• Irish Republican Army
• Terrorism in the United Kingdom
• Terrorist incidents in the 1970s
• Terrorist incidents on buses