'Wrong place, wrong time'

2011-03-14 18:17:57

14 March 2011 Last updated at 04:26 Share this page Delicious Digg Facebook reddit StumbleUpon Twitter Email Print Birmingham Six release remembered 'Wrong place, wrong time' Film outside court 'Probably never find bombers' $render("hypertabs","hypertab"); By Clare Lissaman BBC News Chris Mullin (centre) said the release of the Birmingham Six was one of the best days of his life Continue reading the main story Related Stories Birmingham Six man struggled to rebuild life Birmingham Six's McIlkenny dies Sinn Fein leader 'regrets' bombs

Twenty years ago the Birmingham Six were freed after their convictions for the murders of 21 people in two pub bombings were quashed.

They had served nearly 17 years behind bars in one of the worst miscarriages of justice seen in Britain.

Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, Johnny Walker, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny and Billy Power strode from London's Old Bailey on 14 March 1991, their innocence finally proved.

Alongside the men as they left court greeted by cheering crowds and beeping car horns was Chris Mullin, a journalist and MP who had been working towards their freedom since the late 1970s.

Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

I was convinced that here were six civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time”

End Quote Chris Mullin

Mr Mullin, now 63, first became interested in the case when his journalist friend Peter Chippindale, who attended the men's trial and that of the Guildford Four, told him "he thought they'd got the wrong men in both cases".

Later, Mr Mullin, a law graduate, came across a pamphlet by two Irish priests which presented the six men's version of events.

Shortly afterwards Paddy Hill wrote to Mr Mullin from prison detailing his innocence. It was one of hundreds of letters Mr Hill penned to people he thought could help him.

'Wrong pubs'

The six men were from Northern Ireland and had lived in Birmingham since the 1960s.

Five of them had left Birmingham New Street train station for Belfast on 21 November 1974, the night the Tavern in the Town and Mulberry Bush pubs were bombed.

Five of the men were arrested at Heysham ferry port

They were travelling to Belfast to attend the funeral of James McDade, an IRA member who had blown himself up planting a bomb in Coventry.

The men, some who had been childhood friends with McDade, were arrested in Heysham, Lancashire, as they waited for the ferry to Northern Ireland.

Mr Mullin's involvement in the case deepened with his passion to prove the men's innocence.

"I was convinced that here were six civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

"They drank in the wrong pubs and clubs - while two of them worked with a man who was a genuine member of the IRA."

Mr Mullin became a researcher for ITV's World in Action in 1985 and aimed to "see if we could unearth new evidence" in the case.

The investigative current affairs programme, made by Granada TV, dedicated several editions to discrediting the evidence on which the six men had been convicted.

Mr Mullin said the main planks of evidence were "confessions" by four of the men and forensic evidence which their trial had heard was "99% accurate" in showing two had handled explosives.

Test doubts

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