2001 BBC bombing

At 12:27 am (0027 UTC) on Sunday 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 explosive 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]

As the explosion happened just after midnight, some reports of the incident say that it happened on 3 March rather than 4 March.

The bomb was part of a Real IRA bombing campaign which would also include the Ealing bombing of 3 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 8 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]