'The scene was one of darkness' - Birmingham Pub Bombings officer tells his harrowing story

Warning: Some readers may find details in this article upsetting

On the evening of 21 November 1974, John Plimmer, a 27-year-old detective constable was at The Tavern in the Town pub.

He was having a quick pint with his colleague Mike Davey as they chatted about work.

John suggested if they stay for another half a pint. But Mike said they had too much work on at the station and it wasn't a good idea.

That decision to leave the pub early saved his life...only he didn't know that yet.

John and Mike left the pub ten minutes before they heard the explosions.

For the first time, John spoke with ITV News Central, describing the night he had suppressed for many years.

Once he and Mike heard the explosions, they went in search of the location.

To their surprise, The Tavern in the Town had been hit - and they retraced their steps to where they were only ten minutes earlier.

John said he couldn't think about anything else, other than navigating his way through the dark and smoke, and carrying everyone out onto the New Street pavement.

He said: "I remember seeing a young girl faced upwards to my right at the bottom of the stairs, and I remember saying to her, 'It's alright love, I need to get you upstairs and out of here, it'll be ok once you get to the hospital.' And her head flopped back and she had obviously passed on.

"And the back of her head was basically hollow, and that's when some reality kicked in that we're in a serious position here."

'The scene was one of darkness...there was still smoke billowing - I'll never forget that'

"We must have spent half an hour to an hour picking people up from the debris, carrying them up in to New Street, and placing them on the pavement with their backs on the shop frontages there.

"You were like a racehorse with the blinkers on.

"You couldn't see anything around you apart from what you were focusing on. And our focus was to remove him, him, her, her, out of there, quickly. I have never seen injuries as horrific as those poor people suffered on that night that lived through it.

Twenty-one people were killed and around 200 people were injured when the two bombs exploded minutes apart in the city.

The IRA is thought to have been responsible, despite never claiming responsibility.

Six men, who became known as the ‘Birmingham Six,' were wrongly convicted of murder but cleared in 1991.

No one has since been charged in connection with the attacks.

One of the worst injuries John had ever seen was on that night.

"A young girls, either had a chair leg or a stool leg, had pinned her knee back, having entered through her thigh, out through the other side and into the calf of her leg.

"With all the murders and major investigations I've been involved in in the past, including one train crash, I have never seen injuries as horrific as those poor people suffered on that night that lived through it."

After the bombings, tensions between Irish and non-Irish communities were rife.

John said he saw a spike in arguments and fights in the first 12 months after the bombings, and Irish pubs were attacked.

"We issued not warnings but pleas to all communities to 'settle down.' They didn't know the whole story so they needed to calm down and leave it to the police to deal with."

"Policing on the streets remained the same, except perhaps specialised departments, we had a change of direction, where we were working more with the Irish community than we did before, trying to heal this rift that was developing."

"Either side of that fragmentation will blame the police for favouritism."

He said he almost had to change the way he policed to become councillors in the community, trying to close the rift between different groups in the city.

"What we did was trying to stem this feeling of anger against the Irish population in Birmingham. They did on many occasions condemn what went on, and stating they had no agreements or sympathy with anybody except the victims of those atrocities.

"For our part, all we could do it try and reassure them and outline the fact that the vast majority from the other communities in Birmingham weren't blaming the Irish community solely for what had taken place and that there was a general understanding...Those that were hell-bent on causing trouble were the very, very small minority."

I asked him what the overriding feeling among the Irish community was at the time.

"It wasn't so much they were subjected to fear, I think it was more shame. With the people I spoke to, a lot of Irish friends, the way they came across, it was basically shame, and they were worried they were being tainted with something that they had nothing to do with, which of course was what happened."

For the families of those killed, the absence of justice has only compounded decades of pain.

After years of campaigning, families secured inquests into the 21 deaths in 2019, only to be disappointed by what they saw as the limited scope of the hearings.

Some believe only a statutory public inquiry will force the disclosure of secret documents, but John Plimmer disagrees. He gave evidence at the 2019 inquest and thinks an inquiry will bring back more pain.

"The coroners inquest...went into everything in detail. I don't think it could have searched any further. Everything was unraveled and picked and put together again.

"So I just think after 50 years, what purpose is a public inquiry going to serve? Except bring back more pain and grief for those who lost loved ones on the night."

John was only 10 minutes away from being in the explosion, which he says was a lucky escape, one he will never take for granted. "Ever since that night, a day hasn't gone by without me realising how lucky myself and Mike Davey were.

"To survive it. Somebody up there must have been smiling upon us that night."

A government spokesperson said: "Our deepest sympathies remain with all those who continue to be affected by the horrific pub bombings in Birmingham in 1974."

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