WEBVTT - #168 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - The Birmingham Six 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.720 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.440 writer and I'm Steve Drissen. Today's story is about a 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.520 group of innocent Irish men known as the Birmingham Six. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.400 They were accused of planting bombs inside two pubs in Birmingham, 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.520 England in nineteen seventy two, and they were tortured into 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.880 giving false confessions. All six men were freed in nineteen 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.360 ninety one, but the crime's never been solved. The public 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:38.680 is still demanding answers today about who really planted those bombs. Steve. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:40.760 When we went on our speaking tour last year for 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.720 Making a Murderer, one of my favorite places we visited 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:45.680 was Belfast in Northern Ireland. 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.240 Yeah, it was one of the highlights of our travels. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.240 It was almost like coming home, coming to a place 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.880 which understood the work I've been doing for most of 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.160 my professional life. 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.000 Yeah, there was something about false confessions that really resonated 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:02.720 with that audience. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.640 It's a lived experience and it goes back to the 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.280 way in which the Birmingham Six were treated by law enforcement. 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.600 Well, okay, so here's the thing, right. The Birmingham Six 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:15.560 was a case that arose from the fact that two 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.679 pubs in Birmingham, England were bombed. It was one of 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.480 the biggest mass murders to happen on British soil after 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:23.880 World War Two. I mean, this is like the Oklahoma 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.040 City bombing here in the United States. And the blame 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:29.919 for this crime was placed on these six Irish guys 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.760 who were living in England but who had deep roots 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.080 in Belfast. The injustice of what happened to these guys 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:37.600 is like almost nothing I've seen before. 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:43.240 Yeah, a profound experience of police abuses and of torture 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:44.839 in the interrogation rooms. 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:49.040 Their story resonates for so many people in Northern Ireland 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.280 because the whole place has this incredible history of conflict 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.440 and struggle against power. I actually think that history is 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.080 what brought so many people out last year to our talk. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:01.880 You know, I'd like to believe they came to see 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.040 you and me, but they were probably there to hear 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.040 about injustice and how to fight it. And that's a 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:13.600 little bit better of a reason. I think our story 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.040 today begins in Birmingham, England. It's the second largest city 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.840 in the United Kingdom, with a population in the millions, 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.160 mostly English, but also hundreds of thousands of Irish. Like 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.079 any big city, Birmingham's got a thriving social scene. In particular, 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.760 on almost every corner there's a pub. It's in two 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.120 of those pubs that our story really begins, two ordinary 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.640 places where people go after work to get a pint 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.880 of beer. On November twenty first, nineteen seventy four, two 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:46.480 Birmingham pubs became together the scene of Britain's deadliest mass 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:51.360 murder in modern history. It all started at eight eleven 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.760 in the evening, an anonymous man with an Irish accent 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.120 placed a phone call to the Birmingham Post newspaper. There's 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.520 a bomb planted in the Rotunda, he said, and there's 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:07.200 a bomb in New Street. This, he added, is double X. 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.799 Then silence he'd hung up. The Rotunda was a high 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.760 rise office building in downtown Birmingham with a pub on 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.120 its first floor called the Mulberry Bush. New Street. Around 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.000 the corner was where the city tax office was. There 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.560 was a pub on that building's first floor too, called 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.760 the Tavern in the Town. And then, only six minutes 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:33.840 after that anonymous phone call, it happened two huge explosions. 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.560 The first was at the Mulberry Bush at eight seventeen pm. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.600 A homemade bomb had been left in a leather bag 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.520 somewhere near the back door. When the bomb exploded, the 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.080 pub was packed with people and the damage was horrific. 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.840 The ceiling collapsed, fire engulfed the place. People were crushed 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.640 and burned to death. Others were impaled by falling beams. 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.920 First responders arrived and began working desperately to rescue survivors. 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.040 At the same time, police were frantically trying to evacuate 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.640 the tavern in the town, but they couldn't clear it 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.400 fast enough. At eight twenty seven pm, a second homemade 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:14.400 bomb exploded there again, the packed pub was destroyed. That 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.880 explosion was so powerful that people were blown through the 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.960 brick walls between the two pubs. Twenty one people died 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.240 and one hundred and eighty two were injured. It was 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:31.719 a coordinated attack that left Britain reeling. So why would 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:37.039 anyone bomb pubs in Birmingham? The answer is politics and history. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.680 Here's our friend, doctor Hannah Quirk. She's a professor at 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.479 King's College, London who studies wrongful convictions and, like a 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.080 lot of folks in the United Kingdom, in Ireland. She 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.040 had a front row seat to that history. When she's 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:51.760 talking to people who are new to this part of 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:53.600 the world, Hannah likes to start here. 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.080 So there's obviously the famous U two song about Bloody Sunday. 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:00.080 That song's more than a pop anthem. It tells the 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.680 story of the long running and sometimes violent conflict between 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.880 Ireland and Britain. And here's that story in a nutshell. 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.160 There's a long, complicated history in Ireland, hundreds of years 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.800 of history. But in nineteen twenty two there'd been a 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.880 civil war and the majority of Ireland was given independence 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.520 from Great Britain and formed the Irish Free State. But 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.760 a deal was done to say that the six counties 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.520 of Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.839 Not everyone was happy with this deal, though. People became 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.359 intensely divided about whether Northern Ireland should be part of 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.520 the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland, and 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.400 those divisions often fell along religious lines. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.039 Most Catholics were nationalists or Republicans. They wanted to be 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.160 a united Ireland so the Island of Ireland would be 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:53.560 one country, and most Protestants were Unionists or loyalists. They 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.440 wanted to remain part of Great Britain and be governed 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:57.000 from London. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:03.120 Tensions simmered for years of Eventually anti Catholic sentiment started boiling, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:04.920 especially in Northern Ireland. 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.640 Catholics were very discriminated against. They had far fewer job opportunities, 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.160 The housing was worse, so they were very overcrowded. They 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.560 couldn't sit on juries for the most part because they 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.640 didn't own property. Schools were divided on religious lines as well, 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:20.640 so the Civil rights movement grew in the United States, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.880 and the Catholic population in Northern Ireland gradually began to 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.040 protest about discrimination that they were facing. Two British troops 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.400 had already gone into Northern Ireland to try and keep 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.800 the peace, and then Bloody Sunday in nineteen seventy two 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.560 British paratroopers opened fire on the protesters and killed thirteen 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.080 people and injured fifteen of them. 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.040 After Bloody Sunday, the violence really escalated on both sides. 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.520 People who wanted to end British rule in Northern Ireland 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.479 armed themselves and became active in a group called the 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.880 Irish Republican Army or the IRA. 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.400 That song people always said it was the best recruitment 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.480 thing the IRA could ever have had. Bloody Sunday, I 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.960 think was a real tipping point. It got so much attention, 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.839 not only in Northern Ireland but in England as well, 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:07.039 these images of the army shooting unarmed protesters. 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.920 The IRA thought of themselves as freedom fighters and they 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.520 used violence to make their points, even planting homemade bombs 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.960 all across Britain. The IRA targeted everything from government tax 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:23.280 offices to restaurants and pubs. By nineteen seventy four, two 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.000 years after Bloody Sunday, Britain was experiencing an average of 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:32.320 one attack every three days and British authorities were regularly retaliating. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.400 The conflict was pretty close to a war, and it 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.200 became known as the Troubles. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.760 I mean we called it the Troubles. When I was 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.520 growing up, that was all I heard on the news 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.840 was the Troubles. And then the first time I went 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.600 to Belfast, I realized no, actually this was this was 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.600 like a war. They were appalling levels of casualties in 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.280 those days as well, before the Internet, you'd get newsflashes 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:55.200 on the television, so the screen would go black and 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.840 they'd say we interrupt this program and it would be 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.000 a bomb had gone off for some kind of serious 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.920 situation had taken place. For years, there's been no trash 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.240 comes on public transport in London, just to stop people 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.080 being able to hide bombs there. I was probably about 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.160 eight or nine and my mom had taken me and 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.040 all my cousins and my little brother to buy school 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.440 uniforms and there was this announcement over the tannoy, please 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.880 evacuate the store, and the alarms going off. We just 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:24.640 thought it was a brilliant adventure because we were a 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.120 bit too little to realize it could be quite dangerous. 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.440 And my poor mum was just trying to grab about 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.600 eight children and get us out of the store, but 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:33.280 it was all glass at the front, so she didn't 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.319 know which way to take us and which was more dangerous. 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.280 So we just always laughed about how we all had 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.480 nail marks in our arms from where she was digging 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.680 her fingers in and dragging us out by the hair. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.880 And it seemed like a bit of an adventure at 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.680 the time, but that kind of stuff was quite normal. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.439 Here's just how normal these bombings had become. The IRA 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.240 had rules and under its rules, IRA members who bombed 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.679 as civilian target had to call British police and warned 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.079 them thirty minutes before the bomb went off. The idea 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.679 was to give enough time for police to evacuate as 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.839 many people as possible without sacrificing the bomb's political point. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.440 But the British police needed a way to make sure 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.800 these anonymous phone calls were authentic not hoaxes. So the 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.520 IRA and the police agreed on a codeword known only 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.559 to them. If the caller used the codeword, you could 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.679 be sure the bomb threat was real, and that codeword 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.040 was double X. On the day the bombs went off, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.600 tensions between the IRA and the British were sky high. 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:36.480 A week before, an IRA member named James McDade was 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.360 killed in Britain when a bomb he was placing went 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.960 off prematurely. IRA sympathizers in Britain were planning a hero's 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.920 funeral with military processions and honor guards, but the British 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.640 authorities quickly passed laws making those plans illegal instead. On 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.160 November twenty first, mcdade's body was flown from Birmingham to 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.240 Belfast for burial. Only hours after the plane care his 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.840 body took off. The bombs went off too. Between the 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:06.839 timing of the bombings and the use of the double 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.800 X codeword, it didn't take long for the police and 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.760 the public to conclude that the IRA was responsible. Now, 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.840 it's true the anonymous caller hadn't given the usual thirty 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.680 minutes advanced warning, but that fact got ignored as a 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:25.040 wave of anti Irish anger swept over Britain. The IRA 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.600 issued a denial, but no one listened. The British public 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.400 was terrified and the British authorities were enraged. There was 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:38.920 a thirst for justice and revenge. Within hours of the bombings, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.360 police got a tip five Irish men had been seen 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.720 boarding a train that left Birmingham right before the explosion 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.880 at the Mulberry Bush. Four of them had tickets continuing 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.760 on to Belfast in Northern Ireland. Their names were Jerry Hunter, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:58.199 Dick Macilkenny, John Walker, Billy Power and Patti Hill. They 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.520 were what the Irish call working class lads who didn't 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.240 have a lot of extra money. All five men were Catholic, 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.520 all were married and most of them had kids. None 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.640 of them was affiliated with the IRA. They were headed 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.920 to Belfast to attend James mcdade's funeral, but more out 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.720 of community obligation than for political reasons. For his part, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.000 Patty Hill borrowed his train fare from a nun. He 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.480 promised to pay her back by doing some painting work 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.599 when he returned, but that debt would soon become the 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:32.920 least of his problems. 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.400 This episode is sponsored by AIG, a leading global insurance company, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.360 and Paul Weiss Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, a leading international 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:48.000 law firm. The AIG pro Bono Program provides free legal 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:52.880 services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.960 most in need, and recently they announced that working to 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.720 reform the criminal justice system will become a key pillar 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.280 of the program's mission. Paul Weiss has long had an 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.520 unwavering commitment to providing impactful pro bono legal assistance to 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.600 the most vulnerable members of our society and in support 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.320 of the public interest, including extensive work in the criminal 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:14.040 justice area. 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.520 For the first few hours, the train ride was uneventful, 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.760 but when the train pulled up to Morecambe's station on 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.000 the evening of November twenty first, the police were waiting 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.360 a group of irishmen leaving Birmingham, just as the bombs 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.520 went off, seemed suspicious. All five were arrested and brought 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.200 to a nearby police department. That's where a forensic scientists 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.160 tested their hands for traces of nitroglycerin, a bomb ingredient. 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.800 The hands of two men tested positive, the scientists said, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.440 Billy Power and Patty Hill. That was enough for the police. 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:57.280 Not just justice, but revenge was suddenly possible. Within a day, 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.360 police arrested a sixth Irishman, Hugh Callahan, who had been 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.040 with the other five before they boarded the train, and 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.800 the interrogations endured by these six men, the Birmingham Six, 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:13.080 were horrific. It started at the Morcambe Police department with 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.360 John Walker. A group of police took John into a 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.560 back room where he was beaten, kicked, and burned with 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.040 a cigarette while other officers held his arms back. The 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.920 other men heard John's screaming, and then their turns came too. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.640 For hours, they were all bloodied and beaten from head 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.840 to toe. One of them, Billy Power, was kicked over 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:36.840 and over on his head, legs, and stomach. He was 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.480 dragged by his hair and in one of the most 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.920 sadistic moments of this interrogation, police stretched his scrotum. 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.440 During these interrogations, at least some of these guys were 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.120 shown a letter, a letter that said that the torture 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.080 they were experiencing was state sanctioned. It was a letter 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.320 on government letterhead that basically told the police officers, you 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.920 can do what whatever you need to do in order 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.199 to get a confession from these men. To these guys, 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.720 the message was this pain, this torture is going to 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.199 continue unless you confess. 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.640 By twelve fifty five pm the next day, November twenty second, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.840 Billy had had enough. He signed a written confession prepared 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.800 by police, admitting guilt in the Birmingham pub bombings. A 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.240 few hours later, the men were transferred to the custody 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:32.160 of another police unit, the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:38.960 where the torture continued, beatings, burnings, stress positions, even mock executions. 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.480 Patty Hill remembers having a pistol shoved into his mouth 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.280 so brutally that it broke several of his teeth. With 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.520 a cold metal barrel in Patty's mouth, his interrogators slowly 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.160 counted to three and pulled the trigger three times. They 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.160 did this each time Patty expected to die, only to 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.400 discover that the chamber didn't contain a bo. The thing 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.320 about torture is that it works, at least if your 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.560 only goal is to find a scapegoat. On November twenty third, 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:12.479 Hugh Callahan, Dick mckilkenny, and John Walker signed false confessions. 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.880 Like Billy, they claimed that they were IRA members and 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.960 that they'd planted both pub bombs. Somehow, Patty Hill and 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:24.160 Jerry Hunter were holdouts. They refused to sign confessions despite 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.120 the torture. Police would later claim that Patty and Jerry 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.640 verbally confessed, which Patty denies. The four written confessions were 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.680 short and virtually detail free. In fact, one of the 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.320 only details included was wrong. The confessions claimed that the 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.080 bombs were left at the pubs in white plastic bags, 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.720 but forensic analysis showed the bags had been leather. It 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.280 didn't matter. Four of the Birmingham six had confessed, and 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.560 all of them had been beaten within an inch of 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.160 their lives. Revenge, it seemed, had been achieved. 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.120 The last thing that you want interrogators to do when 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.080 they go into an interrogation room is to be guided 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.920 by a sense of vengeance, because what's going to happen 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.480 is the interrogator is going to do everything in his 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:15.280 power to quench that thirst for revenge, and the interrogation 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.560 no longer becomes about the truth. 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.360 After the confessions, the six were charged with murder and 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.440 transferred to Winston Green Prison, where guards continued the beatings. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.480 When the Birmingham Six were finally brought to court a 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.440 week after the bombings, they'd been brutalized from head to foot. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.280 Patty Hill's wife was in the courtroom with their two 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.680 year old son. When the little boy saw his dad's injuries, 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.000 he was so traumatized that he needed medical attention. But 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.480 authorities told the judge that they had done nothing wrong. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.200 The men had been attacked, they said, by other inmates. 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.080 We've seen excuses like that over and over again, even 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.400 in the United States. When somebody is battered, the police 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.800 changed the narrative from the beginning. They either blame it 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.160 on somebody falling down the stairs, or they blame it 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.879 on other inmates. But when these men appeared in court 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.560 for the first time, everybody knew what had happened to them. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.400 It was clear that they had been through an ordeal. 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.000 That ordeal was far from over. Based on the confessions 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.760 and the nitroglycerin evidence. The Birmingham Six stood trial on 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.840 June ninth, nineteen seventy five. A defense expert testified that 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.679 the explosives testing had been faulty, and defense witnesses pointed 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.480 out that no explosives had been found at any of 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.440 the men's homes, But in short order that Birmingham Six 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:41.080 were convicted. Each man was sentenced to twenty one life sentences, 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.320 one for every person who died, and the people of Britain, 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.000 all of whom thought it could have been them inside 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:54.360 those pubs. They believed that justice had been done from 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:58.119 behind bars. The Birmingham Six fought their convictions like furies 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.359 and insisted the authorities acknowledge they'd been tortured, but for 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.520 a while, it looked like the entire system was lined 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.919 up against them. Eventually, fourteen prison officers were charged with 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.639 assaulting the six, but despite plenty of evidence, those officers 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.399 were all acquitted at trial. The six also tried to 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.879 soothe their torturers, but a judge dismissed their lawsuit in 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.280 nineteen eighty and he did it for reasons that you 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.720 have to hear to believe. Just think what it would 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:30.120 mean for Britain's legal system. The judge explained, if these 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.560 men were allowed to prove they'd been tortured, it would 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.520 mean that the police were guilty of perjury, that they 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.920 were guilty of violence and threats, and that the convictions 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.680 were erroneous. That was such an appalling vista. He declared, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.360 that every sensible person would say, it cannot be right 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:50.439 that this lawsuit should go any further. 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:55.000 You know, the appalling vista here is this paternalistic attitude 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:59.000 of this judge that the public can't handle the truth, 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.119 he said, saying that if this torture were allowed to 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.679 be seen by them, if this injustice were allowed to 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:10.399 be acknowledged, the entire system would crumble. The irony is 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:15.359 that by suppressing the truth, by putting these allegations in 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:20.280 evidence of torture in the closet, he is breaking the 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:25.120 very system he claims to want to protect. Where are 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.800 these men supposed to get justice if not in a 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:29.600 court of law. 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.640 But while the court system closed its eyes to this injustice, 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.679 the world didn't. Journalist Chris Mullen, who would go on 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.879 to become a member of Parliament, investigated the bombings with 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.040 fresh eyes in nineteen eighty five, he retained two scientists 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.960 who debunked the test that supposedly had found nitroglycerin on 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.080 Patty and Billy's hands. A police officer also publicly confirmed 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.320 that the Birmingham Six had been beaten by their interrogators. 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.560 The next year, Chris Mullen published a book about the 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.640 case called Error of Judgment. In the book, Mullen described 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.520 meeting IRA members who admitted they were involved in the bombings, 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:13.240 although he didn't disclose their names, and Mullen explained something 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.359 that had been a mystery for years, why the double 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.080 X collar hadn't given the full thirty minutes warning before 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.760 the first explosion. Turns out, the bombers meant to give 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.720 police thirty minutes, but the telephone booth they'd planned to 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.919 use had been damaged by vandals. By the time they 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.760 found another phone, only six minutes were left. The warning 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.960 system wasn't as fool proof as they thought. That was 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.879 how these bombings became one of the deadliest mass murders 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:55.200 in modern British history. In nineteen eighty seven, advocates, including 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:59.359 renowned civil rights lawyer Gareth Pearce, convinced a court to 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:03.000 re examine the convictions of the Birmingham Six. At the hearing, 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.600 police officers testified about watching their colleagues torture the six men. 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.439 Evidence was also introduced about a handwritten chart that had 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.240 been found in the police station. The interrogators apparently used 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.000 this chart to line up the facts in the different 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.680 men's statements and make sure they matched. Of course, those 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:23.520 facts were actually lies. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.240 The discovery of this chart basically proved what the men 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.919 had been saying all along, that we didn't confess to 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:36.320 these crimes. These were stories that were scripted by the police, 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.680 and we were tortured into saying what they wanted us 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:41.439 to say. 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.919 But despite this new evidence, relief was denied and the 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:48.880 case stalled for four years until a second hearing was granted. 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.000 There new evidence was introduced that further undermined the nitroglycerin 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.800 testing on Patty and Billy's hands. But what finally tipped 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.200 the balance, as Gareth Pierce later wrote it, it was 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.679 the simplest of stupidities. Previously, police had testified that the 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.320 men confessed freely, and that after they confessed, their stories 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:12.280 never changed. But Pierce had found the notebooks on which 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.879 the men's confessions had been written, sure enough. As the 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.280 police wrote, edited, and rewrote the false confessions on notebook pages, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:25.920 their pens left indentations on the pages. Underneath those indentations 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.520 revealed how the stories had evolved and been altered, and 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:31.879 how the police's testimony had been false. 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:37.200 These indentations were like track changes, you know, they were 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:42.119 imprints on paper that were left because the police officers 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:46.199 were writing and rewriting so furiously that they left a 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:50.080 mark on the paper. Evidence that the confessions were scripted 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:55.280 is evidence of police contamination. That the story didn't come 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.840 from the defendants, it came from police officers. 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.760 All six convictions were declared unsafe that's a British term, 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:08.120 and thrown out. And on November twenty first, nineteen ninety one, 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.760 the Birmingham Six walked out of prison after sixteen years 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:13.880 behind bars. 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:16.040 Still makes the hairs on the back of your neck 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.640 stands on end, doesn't it. I remember it really vividly, 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:22.320 that image of them walking out of the court onto 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.760 the street, and builders hanging off scaffolding from the buildings 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.679 across the road, people packed outside, these hundreds and hundreds 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:34.080 of people, TV crews from around the world, and then 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.520 that amazing image of them all coming out linked hands, 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.800 holding them above their heads, with Chris Mullin, the journalist 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.520 who had campaigned for them, and then Paddy grabbing the 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:46.919 microphone and shouting how he'd spent sixteen years in prison 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.240 for a crime he didn't commit. It was that really 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:53.040 raw emotion, that was just so shocking. 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:56.960 The police told us from the start that they knew 0:23:57.040 --> 0:23:58.000 we hadn't done it. 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:00.560