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M62 coach bombing

1970s in West Yorkshire1970s road incidents in Europe1974 in England1974 in military history1974 murders in the United Kingdom
1974 road incidents20th-century history of the British Army20th-century mass murder in EnglandBus bombings in EuropeBus incidents in EnglandDisasters in YorkshireFebruary 1974 crimesFebruary 1974 events in the United KingdomImprovised explosive device bombings in 1974Improvised explosive device bombings in EnglandM62 motorwayMass murder in 1974Mass murder in EnglandMilitary actions and engagements during the Troubles (Northern Ireland)Murder in YorkshireOverturned convictions in the United KingdomProvisional IRA bombings in EnglandRoyal Corps of SignalsRoyal Regiment of FusiliersTerrorist incidents against transport in the United KingdomTerrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1974Terrorist incidents on buses in EuropeUse British English from January 2012

The M62 coach bombing, sometimes referred to as the M62 Massacre, occurred on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in northern England, when a 25-pound (11 kg) Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb hidden inside the luggage locker of a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members exploded, killing twelve people (nine soldiers and three civilians) and injuring thirty-eight others aboard the vehicle.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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article M62 coach bombing (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

M62 coach bombing
M62, Kirklees

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N 53.743333333333 ° E -1.6686111111111 °
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M62
WF17 9BN Kirklees
England, United Kingdom
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West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the reorganisation of the Local Government Act 1972 which saw it formed from a large part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The county had a population of 2.3 million in the 2011 census making it the fourth-largest by population in England. The largest towns are Huddersfield, Castleford, Batley, Bingley, Pontefract, Halifax, Brighouse, Keighley, Pudsey, Morley and Dewsbury. The three cities of West Yorkshire are Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield. West Yorkshire consists of five metropolitan boroughs (City of Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, City of Leeds and City of Wakefield); it is bordered by the counties of Derbyshire to the south, Greater Manchester to the south-west, Lancashire to the west and north-west, North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire to the south and south-east. Remnants of strong coal, wool and iron ore industries remain in the county, having attracted people over the centuries, and this can be seen in the buildings and architecture. Quite a few railways and the M1, M621, M606, A1(M) and M62 motorways traverse the county. West Yorkshire includes the West Yorkshire Built-up Area, which is the biggest and most built-up urban area within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire.