Everything about The M62 Coach Bombing totally explained
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.
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.
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 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.
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 were 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".
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.
Following the explosion, the British public and politicians from all three major parties called for swift justice. 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 true culprits have never been discovered.
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