Families of Birmingham pub attack victims demand arrest of ex-IRA commander who admitted involvement in atrocity

• Michael Hayes told The Mail on Sunday that he led the 1979 attack

The families of the victims of the Birmingham pub bombing yesterday called for a former IRA commander involved in the atrocity to be arrested after he confessed to being behind the killing of Lord Mountbatten.

Michael Hayes told The Mail on Sunday that he planned and led the attack that blew up the yacht of King Charles’ beloved great-uncle in 1979.

The unrepentant grandfather has always denied claims he was responsible for the twin explosions in Birmingham which killed 21 people in 1974, despite detonating a third device.

Yesterday Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine was killed in the atrocity and who led the Birmingham families’ fight for justice, said Hayes “should absolutely be arrested”. Mrs Hambleton, 61, added: “He made admissions and if you or I said that our feet wouldn’t touch the ground.”

Lord Mountbatten, a mentor to Prince Philip and Charles, was killed aged 79 while on holiday at his summer home in Co Sligo.

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His grandson Nicholas, 14, was also killed along with Doreen Brabourne, 83, Nicholas’ grandmother, and crew member Paul Maxwell, 15, from Enniskillen.

Only one member of the IRA was convicted. Thomas McMahon was jailed for life for the murder, but was released under the Good Friday Agreement.

After being approached by a Mail on Sunday reporter, Hayes boasted: “I blew up Earl Mountbatten.”

Horrifyingly, he said he had no regrets and coldly described the two teenagers who died as “casualties of war”.

Legal experts said his admission could make him liable to prosecution for the crimes in the Republic of Ireland.

Politicians including MP Ian Paisley Jr and former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith called for Hayes’ arrest.

An unnamed former IRA member told the 2019 inquests into the Birmingham bombings that Hayes, a toolmaker in the city at the time, was one of the four men involved. Hayes, who now lives in Dublin, has consistently denied building the bombs used to destroy the Tavern in the Town and Mulberry Bush pubs.

It has now been linked to the murder of Lord Mountbatten. Asked if he designed the bomb, he boasted: “Yes, I blew it up. McMahon put it on his boat… I planned it all, I’m commander in chief. Irish police have not yet commented on whether they will take action.

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