2001 BBC bombing

4 March 2001 BBC bombing
4 March 2001 BBC bombing
Part of the Dissident Irish Republican campaign
Location	White City, London, United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°30′41″N 0°13′29″W / 51.5113°N 0.2248°W
Date	4 March 2001 ; 12:30 am – (GMT)
Target	BBC Television Centre
Attack type	Car bomb
Deaths	0
Injured	1
Perpetrators	Noel Maguire, Robert Hulme, Aiden Hulme, James McCormack and John Hannan

The 2001 BBC bombing was a terrorist attack on the BBC's main news centre within BBC Television Centre, on Wood Lane in the White City area of West London.

History

At 12:27 am (0027 UTC) on 4 March 2001, the Real IRA, a dissident Irish republican group, detonated a car bomb outside the BBC's main news centre within BBC Television Centre, on Wood Lane in the White City area of West London.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Between ten and twenty pounds (approximately 1.36 and 9.07 kilograms) of high explosives had been placed in a red taxi, reports by BBC after the bombing reported that it was a black taxi but was later identified as a red taxi. The taxi was purchased on the morning of 3 March in Edmonton, north London, and abandoned yards from the main front door of BBC Television Centre at 11 pm.^[4] Police officers were attempting to carry out a controlled explosion on the bomb with a bomb-disposal robot when it went off. Staff had already been evacuated after police received a coded warning that had been given to a London hospital and charity one hour before the explosion. There were no fatalities, though one London Underground worker suffered cuts to his eye caused by glass debris.^[5]

BBC cameraman Jon Brotherton caught the moment of the explosion and the resulting damage—which included numerous smashed windows in the front entrance—was seen as day broke.^[6]

Conviction

The bomb was part of a Real IRA bombing campaign which included the Ealing bombing on 2 August 2001 and an attempted bombing in Birmingham city centre on 3 November 2001.^[7] Later in November, three men—Noel Maguire, Robert Hulme, and his brother Aiden Hulme—were arrested in connection with all three bomb attacks. They were convicted at the Old Bailey on 9 April 2003,^[8] together with two other men—James McCormack, of County Louth, and John Hannan, of Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh, both of whom had already admitted the charge at an earlier hearing.^[9] The Hulme brothers were both jailed for 20 years; Maguire, who the judge said played "a major part in the bombing conspiracy", was sentenced to 22 years; McCormack, who the judge said had played the most serious part of the five, also received 22 years; and Hannan, who was 17 at the time of the incidents, was given 16 years' detention.^[10]