Birmingham Six



Birmingham Six

The Birmingham Six were Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker. The release of the Birmingham Six was a watershed for British justice. In the months that followed there was a string of further releases. At the time of writing, twenty-seven other people have either had convictions quashed or charges against them dropped after evidence from West Midlands detectives was discredited.

I realise that air of humility which descended upon official pronouncements did not last long. Gradually it became apparent that the mighty vested interests at the heart of the British criminal justice system were making good use of the two-year respite bought by the Royal Commission. Evidence submitted by the Police Federation, the Home Office and the Attorney General was breath-taking in its complacency. The casual reader could be forgiven for thinking that the Commission had been set up as a result of public concern about the number of persons guilty of serious offences who have walked free. Gradually it became apparent that there were those who saw the Commission as an opportunity to diminish rather than strengthen the safeguards against wrongful conviction. The reform about which the police and the Home Office appeared to be most enthusiastic was the removal of a suspect's right to remain silent in police custody.

There was also anxiety that the obligation on the Crown to disclose to the defence all relevant information regarding the case against defendants was too onerous and should be reduced. Nowhere in the police evidence was there any recognition of the fact that the failure of the police and the Crown to disclose evidence was a central feature of the Birmingham, Guildford and Judith Ward cases.

As I read that Royal Commission reported in July, 1993, the agenda had been re-written beyond recognition. Understandable public concern over the inability of our criminal justice system to cope with the tidal wave of yobbery unleashed by the Thatcher decade had been skilfully mobilised to smother concern over miscarriages of justice. No one but a few alleged do-gooders, any longer cared whether innocent people languished in jail. What mattered was that the guilty were going unpunished. What was needed was not more safeguards, but fewer. At the same time the vast edifice of lies which appeared to have been demolished with the dramatic release of the Guildford and Birmingham defendants was being carefully reconstructed.

A whispering campaign ...