Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men, Hugh Callaghan , Patrick Joseph Hill , Gerard Hunter , Richard McIlkenny , William Power and John Walker , who falsely in 1975 for IRA - bombings in the British Birmingham were sentenced to life imprisonment. After nearly 16 years, the judgments were overturned by an appeals court on March 14, 1991 and those wrongly detained were released. Later the six convicts received compensation from 840,000 to 1.2 million pounds sterling . The case, like the similar ones of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, went down as one of the biggest judicial scandals in British legal history.
Birmingham bombings
On November 21, 1974, the IRA presumably planted bombs in front of a bank branch and in the pubs Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town in Birmingham, England. While the bomb failed to detonate near the bank branch, at 8:25 p.m. and 8:27 p.m., the bombs exploded in the pubs, killing 21 people (ten in Mulberry Bush , eleven in the Tavern in the Town ) and another 161 people were injured. These attacks are among the worst ever carried out by the IRA in the British Isles.
Arrests and interrogations
All six men arrested were Roman Catholic and born in Northern Ireland , but had lived in Birmingham since the 1960s. Five of the six (Hill, Hunter, McIlkenny, Power and Walker) left Birmingham by train in the early evening of November 21, just before the explosions, to Belfast for the funeral of an IRA member involved in a failed Coventry bombing was killed to participate. The sixth, Callaghan, said goodbye to the others at the station.
In Heysham the five travelers were checked by the police together with others on the train, but did not state the real purpose of their trip, which was to be used against them in the later trial. During the inspection, the police were informed of the bombings in Birmingham. When asked, the five men agreed to undergo forensic tests at the Morecambe Police Station .
On the morning of November 22, after forensic testing, interrogation and abuse by police officers in Morecambe, the men were transferred to a police unit specializing in terrorism. William Power said he was later attacked by police officers in Birmingham. Callaghan, who had stayed in Birmingham, was also arrested on the evening of November 22nd. Among other things, because of the above-mentioned abuse, the six arrested persons incriminated themselves during the interrogation and made confessions.
process
On May 12, 1975, the men then known as the Birmingham Six were charged with murder and conspiracy to cause explosives, as well as three other men, charged with conspiracy and possession of explosives. The trial itself began on June 9, 1975 at Lancaster Castle , presided over by Judge Nigel Bridge.
Forensic Evidence
The prosecution stated that at Hill and Power a test with the Grieß's reagent had clearly shown traces of explosives. The same investigation was negative for Callaghan, Hunter, McIlkenny and Walker. The prosecutor added to his remarks that the results were 99 percent certain that Hill and Power had handled explosives. The presiding judge was very open to these statements and attached great importance to them in reaching a verdict. A gas chromatography carried out later as part of the appeal negotiations turned out to be negative at Hill and produced such contradicting results at Power that use in court was not permitted.
statement
There were hardly any reliable statements against the Birmingham Six . The indictment was based primarily on the detainees' own testimony and confessions and on investigations by the police and prosecution, which, among other things, showed John Walker had contacts with IRA members, but did not show any connections to the Birmingham bombings. However, on the judge's instructions, the confessions could not be used primarily to reach a verdict because they had evidently been obtained through the use of force. Judge Bridge based this order on the fact that the six detainees in prison on November 28, 1974 , showed numerous injuries and signs of massive violence on a trial date . Several subsequently initiated investigations and even charges against prison officials and police officers remained without result or conviction.
judgment
After the taking of evidence and the pleadings, as well as the judge's assessments, a jury found the six men guilty of multiple murders, despite the evidently violent confessions. Judge Bridge sentenced the six men thereupon on August 15, 1975 each to life imprisonment.
vocation
The Birmingham Six submitted after the verdict already in March 1976 calling one against the judgments. However, this appeal was dismissed. Lord Denning , the chief appellate judge, categorically refused to retrial in 1980. His reasoning was: " If the six win the case, then that would mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they were guilty of the use of force and the threat, that the confessions were involuntary and the judgments were an error. " but " such a terrifying prospect " that it would be better not to bring the case up. As a result, journalist and later MP Chris Mullin took on the case and investigated it for a television documentary that highlighted serious doubts about the legality of the judgments. In his resulting book, Error of Judgment - The Truth About the Birmingham Pub Bombings , he analyzed the case in detail and provided evidence of the innocence of the Birmingham Six . Home Secretary Douglas Hurd then reassigned the case to an appeals court. However, after a six-week appeal by the appeals court, the judges upheld the original judgments in January 1988.
In the following years there was great media interest in the case of the Birmingham Six . In various television documentaries, articles and essays, evidence of the innocence of the convicts was repeatedly collected and presented. As a result of these publications, among other things, there were more and more demonstrations demanding the release of the Six .
Public pressure led to another appeal hearing in 1991. The Birmingham Six were represented by well-known lawyers, such as civil rights attorney Gareth Peirce , who presented new evidence at the trial. This material showed that the police not only fabricated evidence, but also withheld exonerating statements from the court in 1975. Furthermore, the new analyzes described above have shown the original forensic evidence to be invalid. Based on the new evidence, the judgments were overturned and the Birmingham Six released.
Consequences
The cassation of judgments, the apparent miscarriage of justice and similar cases led the British Home Office to set up a commission to review British law enforcement in 1991. In 1993 this commission presented a report which led to a reform of the appeal procedures in 1995 and to the establishment of an independent expert commission in 1997.
Investigations into perjury and conspiracy were initiated against senior police officers from the 1974 and 1975 interrogations . However, no charges were ever brought.
See also
literature
- Louis Blom-Cooper: The Birmingham Six and Other Cases . Hunter & Callaghan v Duckworth & Company and Blom-Cooper, ISBN 0-7156-2813-5 .
- Chris Mullin: Error of Judgment: The Truth About the Birmingham Bombings
Web links
- Birmingham stop. -Documentation (English)
- The Birmingham Six on innocent.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Although the IRA denied being involved in the Birmingham bombings immediately after the attack and never officially admitted itself later, a high-ranking IRA member declared in 1985 that the IRA was involved in the attacks. Thirty years after the bombings, Gerry Adams, chairman of Sinn Féin , expressed his regret at the huge loss of life and injuries caused by the Birmingham bombing. (Angelique Chrisafis: IRA fails to say sorry for Birmingham pub bombs . In: The Guardian , November 22, 2004. Adams expresses regret for Birmingham pub bombings . ( Memento of the original of December 24, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. In: Irish Examiner , November 22, 2004)
- ↑ Birmingham Six: Br. Denis Faul and Br. Raymond Murray. (nd; 1975?) The Birmingham Framework: Six innocent men framed for the Birmingham Bombings . CAIN
- ↑ Richard McIlkenney: 93 Cr.App.R. 287 - Statements and summaries of the appeal process, 1991
- ↑ Beverley Schurr: Expert Witnesses And The Duties Of Disclosure & Impartiality: The Lessons Of The IRA Cases In England. . Retrieved August 5, 2007.
- ^ Chris Mullin Error of Judgment , p. 229
- ↑ Birmingham Six: Fr. Denis Faul and Fr. Raymond Murray. (1976) The Birmingham Framework: Six innocent men framed for the Birmingham Bombings . CAIN
- ↑ Bob Woofden: Miscarriages of Justice . 1987
- ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau of January 30, 1988
- ↑ Richard McIlkenney: 93 Cr.App.R. 53-54 - Statements and Summaries of the Appeal Process, 1991
