Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:05 am Post subject: 21 Nov 1974, 21 dead, Birmingham Six miscarriage of justice
Could a documentary like this be made today? Yes there are plenty people brutal and racist enough to do this to Muslims in Britain's Police Stations and Prisons today.
Prison Officers were all aquitted.
ITV documentary: The Birmingham Six: Their Own Story (tx. 18.03.1991)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGQfe7k3un0
Why are crooked cops NEVER prosecuted?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/...
Wrongful Imprisonment - ITV documentary on The Birmingham Six. Could this film be made today?
Buy this and other World In Action documentaries here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Action-...
Comparisons this case to modern day Muslim 'fit ups'.
On 21 November, 1974, the Mulberry Bush pub at the foot of the city's Rotunda tower and the nearby Tavern in the Town, were both destroyed within minutes of each other.
Six men imprisoned for the attacks had their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal, after 16 years in jail, in March 1991.
The Birmingham Six - Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker - were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975.
Human-rights lawyer Gareth Peirce who helped free the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four is now leading the fight for justice for the family of Jean Charles de Menezes. Here she is interviewed:
I.R.A. suspects the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six spent years in jail before you secured their release. Do their cases offer lessons for today? "I think these cases were an object lesson in how not to do things. It was a very belated dawning that unless an entire national community and the reasons for the conflict were understood, and a political solution devised, there could never be an end to the armed struggle. Now that message has been ignored — there is a completely baffling and frightening failure to understand what motivates political Islam."
So you see parallels with the current situation? "Speaking to one of the Guildford Four recently, his reaction is: "Those poor guys, those Muslims — that's exactly what happened to us. Has nobody learned?""
The Guildford Four's story was the subject of a film, In the Name of the Father.
In August 1975 they were sentenced to life in prison on the basis of the false confessions. The men were denied the right to appeal and forced to wait until 1987 when their case was referred to the Court of Appeal, after new evidence emerged, before being rejected.
Public protests kept the case in the spotlight until August 1990 when forensic investigations showed their confessions had been tampered with.
ITV documentary: The Birmingham Six: Their Own Story (tx. 18.03.1991) - 50 min
Men each given 21 life sentences. Wrongful Imprisonment - ITV documentary: The Birmingham Six. Could this film be made today??? Buy this and further World In Action documentaries and watch them in high quality here http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Action-Vol-1/dp/B000BEVZYA Comparisons to modern day Muslim 'terrorist' miscarriages of justice are extremely disturbing. In August 1975 they were sentenced to life in prison on the basis of the false confessions. The men were denied the right to appeal and forced to wait until 1987 when their case was referred to the Court of Appeal, after new evidence emerged, before being rejected. Public protests kept the case in the spotlight until August 1990 when forensic investigations showed their confessions had been tampered with. On 21 November, 1974, the Mulberry Bush pub at the foot of the city's Rotunda tower and the nearby Tavern in the Town, were both destroyed within minutes of each other. Six men imprisoned for the attacks had their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal, after 16 years in jail, in March 1991. The Birmingham Six - Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker - were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975. Human-rights lawyer Gareth Peirce who helped free the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four is now leading the fight for justice for the family of Jean Charles de Menezes. Here she is interviewed: I.R.A. suspects the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six spent years in jail before you secured their release. Do their cases offer lessons for today? "I think these cases were an object lesson in how not to do things. It was a very belated dawning that unless an entire national community and the reasons for the conflict were understood, and a political solution devised, there could never be an end to the armed struggle. Now that message has been ignored — there is a completely baffling and frightening failure to understand what motivates political Islam." So you see parallels with the current situation? "Speaking to one of the Guildford Four recently, his reaction is: "Those poor guys, those Muslims — that's exactly what happened to us. Has nobody learned?"" The Guildford Four's story was the subject of a film, In the Name of the Father
A four man PIRA cell was being hunted by Special Branch. They were named in 2019 as Seamus McLoughlan. Mick Murray, Michael Hayes and James Gavin.
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/new...
'This is what I believe is the truth' - Coventry journalist Chris Youett on 1974 Birmingham Pub Bombings
Two bombs, 21 dead, 182 injured on 21st November 1974.
A four man PIRA cell was being hunted by Special Branch.
Three bombs were planted. One at Selly Oak didn't go off but was planted AFTER most of those charged were arrested.
Phone boxes intended for warnings had been vandalised so no intended warnings got through.
Special Branch were within 48 hours of arresting the five man cell responsible for planting the bombs but Superintendent George Reade of the Serious Crime Squad (known as the Lying Squad) took over the investigation. The 'Birmingham Six' were wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years.
Chris Youett, Tony Gosling
www.dialectradio.co.uk - BCfm 93.2 - 21 Jan 2020
Special Branch ‘knew’ who the real Birmingham bombers were from 1975
Justice
A convicted bomber has told an inquest the names of those he claims were responsible for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. 21 people died and more than 200 were injured in the atrocity. Yet there are historical claims that Special Branch knew the identities of the real bombers going back to 1975 – the year that the Birmingham Six were convicted
The Birmingham Six were released and their convictions quashed. Superintendent George Reade and two other police officers were charged with perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice but were never brought to trial.
What really happened
After the appeal decision, the six gave their version of events, including accounts of beatings and torture by police and prison officers:
The names
One year before the Birmingham Six were released, Granada Television’s Who Bombed Birmingham? named those allegedly responsible: Seamus McLoughlin, Mick Murray, James Francis Gavin and Michael Hayes.
Some 16 years later, Patrick Hill blamed the police for the cover-up and asserted that Gavin and Murray (by then both deceased) as well as three others who were ‘free men’ in Ireland, were responsible for the bombings. McLoughlin died in 2014.
Special Branch knew the names
Granada claimed that the names given in Who Bombed Birmingham? were based on Special Branch files dating back to 1975 and subsequently leaked to World in Action. In 2016, former Labour MP Chris Mullin added that World in Action had:
obtained a document from the special branch archive which was a precis of interviews with a man who names several of the pub bombers. Remarkably, the police chose to take no action. To do so, of course, would have meant admitting that they had just put away the wrong people. The Criminal Records Office reference on the file is 10368/74.
And that’s not all.
In September 2016, the court of appeal ruled there was evidence that the police knew in advance that the IRA were planning the Birmingham bombings:
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