Fifty years after the Birmingham pub bombings, Chris Mullin, the investigative journalist and former MP who played a pivotal role in exposing the wrongful convictions of innocent individuals, addressed a full lecture theatre at City University in London.
The event, titled Error of Judgement – The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings, marked the anniversary of Mullin's landmark work in seeking justice for those wrongfully convicted.
On 21 November 1974, two explosions went off at pubs in Birmingham city centre, killing 21 people and injuring 220 others. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) had been increasing its activity in Britain and the bombings were quickly attributed to the group. Shortly after the bombings six men were arrested. They were originally from Northern Ireland but had lived in Birmingham since the 1960s. Five of the six men had been on a train which left Birmingham shortly before the bombs went off and the sixth had been an acquaintance who had seen them off at the station. They became known as the Birmingham Six.
After being in police custody for three days, four of the men confessed.
Mullin recounted the men’s trial and the evidence at play. It boiled down to two things: signed confessions and the results of the Griess Test (a forensic test which determines the presence of nitro-glycerine on the skin). The evidence, according to the court at that time, was taken to be both clear and overwhelming. The men were convicted and in 1975, they were sentenced to life for the murders of 21 people.
Mullin became interested in the Birmingham Six case shortly after the trial, uncovering that the so-called "clear and overwhelming" evidence presented against the accused was deeply flawed and riddled with inconsistencies. His investigative work would go on to expose the grave injustices at the heart of the case. He found that:
- The confessions were beaten out of the defendants. They were only a few sentences long and contradicted each other in every respect, including which bombs were in which pub and what the bombs had been contained in.
- The Griess test conducted found the presence of nitroglycerine on two of the defendants’ hands. This led to Frank Skuse, a forensic scientist, determining that two of the men had handled explosives. However, there were other possibilities which may have explained why nitroglycerine was on their hands and its mere presence does not go to show that they handled explosives. For one, Mullin and his team discovered that packs of playing cards tested positive for nitroglycerine. Five of the six men were playing cards on the train.
- There was no evidence of where the bombs had come from.
- There was no evidence that any of the six men were in the IRA, and in actual fact, none of them were.
This evidence was presented at the 1991 appeal after a previous failed appeal and 16 years later, the convictions of the Birmingham Six were quashed.
The Birmingham Six were not the only ones, unfortunately, who suffered irreversible damage and suffering as a result of severe miscarriages of justice. The practice of obtaining false confessions, police misconduct and problematic expert forensic testimony formed the basis for other high-profile cases in the 1970s, including the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and Judith Ward. The exposure of the miscarriages led to the creation of a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice in 1991, which culminated in the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). It also helped shape key pieces of legal reform including the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984.
These tools have been pivotal in guarding against miscarriages of justice. In fact, since its establishment, the work done by the CCRC has led to 590 successful appeals. With this said, the system still has its faults, as Mullin rightly pointed out during the event. When asked to comment on the biggest risks to miscarriages of justice now, Mullin referred to the issues surrounding the handling of evidence and the process of disclosure. He mentioned Andrew Malkinson’s case as an example of this.
Malkinson had been carrying out his sentence for nearly 20 years before the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction of two counts of rape and one count of attempting to choke with intent to commit an indictable offence. The conviction was quashed on the basis of new DNA evidence and undisclosed material recovered from the police. Malkinson had made two applications to the CCRC for referral to the Court of Appeal before a successful referral was granted following a third review.
In a report published this past summer, it is clear that miscarriages of justice of the sort faced by the Birmingham Six are anything but gone. Malkinson’s case brought to light several issues with the current criminal justice system, including but not limited to:
- Non-disclosure of relevant material.
- The process by which the CCRC reviews the referral requests which come to them.
- Limitations to access to justice relating to costs and finances.
The report includes severe criticism of how the body handled the case and made clear that widespread reform is needed to curtail the numbers of miscarriages of justice that occur. The CCRC acknowledged the problems raised by Malkinson’s case and have started reviewing previous referral rejections, but is this enough?
The 50th anniversary of the Birmingham bombings is a stark reminder of the pain suffered by so many – the victims of the bombings, the families of those who lost their lives and the innocent individuals who were wrongly convicted of committing the crime to name a few. To date, the case remains one of the largest unsolved mass murder cases in modern British history.
The injustice faced by the Birmingham Six, like that faced by Andrew Malkinson, was and is avoidable. As a result of the events which unfolded in the 1970s, we have the tools to limit the number of miscarriages of justice, however, these tools are of little to no use if those in power are not able to recognise the various shortcomings that affect these mechanisms.
To start, police forces should be continuously reminded of their duty to retain material in cases resulting in conviction and statutory powers should be put in place requiring public bodies to comply with disclosure requests within a specific time frame after which sanctions for non-compliance should apply. This was a key recommendation made by the Westminster Commission on Miscarriages for Justice in 2021 and would help tackle non-disclosure and the destruction of exculpatory material which are too often at the root of miscarriages of justice.
In recognition of the innocent men whose lives were irreparably altered 50 years ago, we must continue to reflect on the flaws within our criminal justice system. It is vital to hold those responsible for miscarriages of justice accountable and to persist in the pursuit of a system that protects the innocent.
Basanti Mardemootoo is a pupil barrister at Red Lion Chambers.