On 4 February 1974, a 25-pound (11 kg) bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in a coach on the M62 motorway in northern England exploded, killing twelve people (nine soldiers and three civilians) and injuring thirty-eight others aboard the vehicle. The IRA hid the bomb inside a luggage locker of the coach, which was carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members.
Ten days after the bombing, 25-year-old Judith Ward was arrested in Liverpool while waiting to board a ferry to Ireland. She was later convicted of the M62 coach bombing and two other separate, non-fatal attacks and remained incarcerated until her conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1992, with the court hearing Government forensic scientists had deliberately withheld information from her defence counsel at her October 1974 trial which strongly indicated her innocence. As such, her conviction was declared unsafe.
Ward was released from prison in May 1992, having served over 17 years of a sentence of life imprisonment plus thirty years. Her wrongful conviction is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
The M62 coach bomb has been described as "one of the IRA's worst mainland terror attacks" and remains one of the deadliest mainland acts of the Troubles.
The bombing
The bombed coach had been specially commissioned to carry British Army and Royal Air Force personnel—on weekend leave with their families—to and from bases at Catterick and Darlington during a period of railway strike action sourcing from a labour dispute. The vehicle itself had departed from Manchester in the late evening of Sunday 3 February and was travelling at approximately 60 mph (100 km/h) along the M62 motorway en route to Catterick Garrison. Shortly after midnight, as most of those aboard were sleeping and when the bus was travelling between junctions 26 and 27 of the M62, the 25-pound (11 kg) bomb—concealed within a suitcase or similar parcel inside the coach's luggage compartment—exploded.
The explosion reduced the rear of the coach to a "tangle of twisted metal", trapping several casualties within the debris and throwing individuals and severed limbs up to 250 yards (230 m) upon and around the motorway. No other vehicle was damaged in the explosion, although the vehicle travelling immediately behind the coach is known to have ploughed into the scattered debris of the rear of the coach. The coach itself travelled for more than 200 yards (180 m) before the driver, 39-year-old Roland Handley (himself injured by flying glass), was able to steer the coach to a halt upon the hard shoulder.
One surviving soldier later described his recollections of having been blown through the emergency doors of the coach, only to find himself lying upon the ground viewing a "mangled wreck". This soldier later assisted a young girl aged approximately 17 with injured legs whom he found lying on her back approximately 200 yards (180 m) "back up the [motorway]". According to this individual, the girl had repeatedly hysterically screamed: "My God! The floor just opened up and I fell through!" as he provided medical assistance. Another survivor, nine-year-old David Dendeck, regained consciousness to find himself trapped in the wreckage of the coach listening to his 14-year-old sister, Catherine, shouting his name as he observed other survivors "screaming and running up the verge" alongside the coach.
One of the first motorists to offer assistance after Handley had navigated the coach to a halt was John Clark, who later recollected seeing a young man lying upon the motorway with one leg partially severed and the body of a child, stating: "It was just absolutely ... unbelievable. It was dark, so you couldn't see how bad the injuries really were, but it was the smell of it. It was absolutely total carnage."
The entrance hall of the nearby westbound section of the Hartshead Moor service station was used as an impromptu first aid station for those wounded in the blast. Off-duty staff at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Batley General Hospital were also contacted and encouraged to report for duty in response to the emergency.
Fatalities
The explosion killed eleven people outright and wounded over thirty others, one of whom died four days later. Amongst the dead were nine soldiers – two from the Royal Artillery, three from the Royal Corps of Signals and four from the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Four of the servicemen killed in the bombing were teenagers and all but one of the serving personnel killed in the explosion hailed from Greater Manchester. Twelve others upon the coach suffered severe injuries, including a six-year-old boy, who was badly burned.
One member of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers killed in the explosion was 23-year-old Corporal Clifford Haughton, whose entire family, consisting of his wife, Linda (also 23), and sons Lee, aged 5, and Robert, aged 2, were also killed. All four had been sitting directly above the bomb, and all were killed instantly.
Reaction
Although mainland Britain had seen several IRA attacks—successful or otherwise—within the previous year, the M62 coach bombing was the most severe attack upon the mainland to date. Press and public alike were incensed, with the BBC describing the bombing as "one of the IRA's worst mainland terror attacks" and national newspapers such as The Guardian describing the atrocity as an "IRA outrage on the British mainland". In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Defence Association launched a renewed wave of revenge attacks on Irish Catholics in response to the M62 coach bomb, promising their campaign of sectarian violence would continue unabated "until the IRA ceased [their] bombing in England". Within days of the bombings, loyalists had shot and killed three Catholic civilians and wounded a further eight, some critically.
Politicians from all three major parties called for "swift justice" against the perpetrator or perpetrators and the IRA in general. Within twenty-four hours of the explosion, demands had been heard in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that Irish citizens entering Britain be required to carry passports and other forms of identification at all times. The Secretary of State for Defence, Ian Gilmour, confirmed on 5 February these existing laws were to be reviewed.
IRA Army Council response
In an interview shortly after the bombing, IRA Army Council member Dáithí Ó Conaill was challenged over the choice of target, the lack of the official IRA protocol of a given advance warning, and the resulting deaths of civilians, including children. Ó Conaill replied that the coach was selected as a legitimate target because IRA intelligence had indicated that the vehicle was commissioned to carry military personnel only.
Investigation
Although a police spokesman initially emphasised that investigators were keeping an "open mind" as to the cause of the explosion, in the days immediately following the bombing, suspicion quickly fell upon the IRA, which had extended its campaign to England the previous year and had recently begun efforts to force the British Government to transfer four IRA members serving life imprisonment in English jails and currently engaging in hunger strikes to prisons in Northern Ireland.
The construction of the explosive device was typical of those used by the IRA. An analysis of fragments of the timing device recovered at the scene of the explosion revealed the device may have been set to detonate up to one hour before the explosion. As the vehicle had stopped in Oldham, Manchester Chorlton Street coach station, and finally Huddersfield to collect returning service personnel and their families prior to travelling towards Catterick Garrison, a possibility existed the device could have been placed in the vehicle in any of these three locations, although the timing of the explosion indicated the device would unlikely have been placed upon the vehicle in Huddersfield.
Investigators initially remained open-minded as to whether the perpetrator was a member of a UK-based cell, or had travelled across from Northern Ireland to commit the atrocity, as had been the case with regard to a previous IRA bombing at the Old Bailey.
Arrest of Judith Ward
At 6:30 a.m. on 14 February, police encountered a 25-year-old mentally ill English woman named Judith Teresa Ward standing in a shop doorway in Liverpool city centre, seeking shelter from the cold and rain. As her driving licence had been issued in Northern Ireland and a letter from the Royal Ulster Constabulary was also found in her possession, Ward was detained for questioning.
Police quickly discovered the address on Ward's driving licence was false. She was then asked how she intended to travel to Ireland with very little money in her possession. In response, she claimed to have intended to telephone a friend in Ireland who would send her the money. The same evening, with Ward's consent, forensic scientist Frank Skuse obtained swab samples from her hands and fingernails to conduct Griess tests. These tests revealed what Skuse described as "faint traces" of nitrites upon one of her nails. A subsequent forensic examination by Skuse of a caravan in which Ward had recently lived prior to her arrest also revealed what he concluded to be traces of nitroglycerin upon a duffel bag and other personal possessions.
According to police, shortly thereafter, Ward—who is known to have suffered from a personality disorder—made a verbal statement claiming to have been a member of the IRA since 1971, but that "after [the M62 coach bombing] I just want out". The following day, she was transferred to the custody of West Yorkshire Police to be questioned further with regard to the M62 coach bombing.
Confessions
The ensuing police investigation was led by Detective Chief Superintendent George Oldfield. This investigation would prove to be rushed, careless and ultimately forged, but culminated in Ward claiming culpability for the M62 coach bombing and two separate, non-fatal explosions. Initially, Ward was questioned by two members of the Metropolitan Police Service at Wakefield's Police Training College. The conclusion of the Detective Inspector and Detective Constable following the first of their three interviews with Ward on 16 February was that she held "poor knowledge" of the construction of explosive devices and, although discrepancies were noted between the various oral statements Ward made and earlier statements she and others had provided to investigators, by 7:45 p.m., Ward had provided a written confession claiming culpability for the M62 coach bombing. She would initially be charged with conspiracy to cause an explosion on the M62 motorway on 18 February.
According to Ward's confessions, she was an "IRA volunteer" who had planted the M62 coach bomb in the luggage compartment of the coach while the vehicle was parked at Manchester Chorlton Street coach station. The luggage compartment had already been open when she, "shaking like a leaf", placed the bag containing the bomb between "a few army issue bags" in the luggage compartment. She had then turned and "legged it" out of the station, expecting the bomb to explode in twenty minutes.
By 25 February, West Yorkshire investigators had established that Ward's employment with a travelling circus had taken her to the market town of Chipping Norton in the Cotswold Hills on 3 February. Over a dozen independent witnesses were able to confirm this fact, thus meaning Ward could not have physically placed the bomb upon the coach as she had previously claimed. According to official records, on this date, Ward asked to see a Detective Superintendent Weight, exclaiming: "I want to see you about that statement I made to the other officers. I want to change it. I didn't put the bomb on that bus." The records further state Weight replied, "Yes, I know that." Ward then changed her statement to claim she had transported the bomb from Derby to a house in Longsight, Manchester and that, as the circus was to travel to Chipping Norton on the intended date of the bombing, she informed the two occupants of the house they would "have to do" the bombing. Ward then volunteered she "[knew] something about the Latimer job" she also wished to confess. The following day, in the presence of George Oldfield, Ward wrote a confession claiming culpability for transporting the explosives used in the September 1973 Euston bombing.
Ward also claimed to have conducted a string of operational activities for the IRA in both Belfast and mainland Britain in 1973 and 1974, to have been married to a deceased IRA member named Michael McVerry, and to have borne a child to another IRA member. However, although a supporter of Sinn Féin and likely knowing several individuals involved in IRA activity, she had no firm connections with the IRA. The IRA would subsequently issue a statement confirming this fact.