Is the British Legal System Finally Ready for Justice for the True Perpetrators of an IRA Bombing?

Friday,​ 25 February. To the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, to respond to an application – under the Terrorism Act, no less – from the West Midlands Police. They are demanding that I hand over notes I made in the 1980s during my investigation into the Birmingham pub bombings, in the hope that these will help them to track down one of the two surviving bombers. A bit late, you may think, given that the bombings took place nearly fifty years ago, and my investigation, which led to the release of six innocent men, was concluded in 1991. What kept them so long? The short answer is that for many years the West Midlands Police, in common with much of the legal profession, were content to believe that the six men whose convictions had been quashed were in fact guilty. In the years that followed I lost count of the number of people who contacted me saying things like: ‘I had dinner with Lord Justice so-and-so last night and you should have heard what he was saying about the Birmingham Six.’

Friday,​ 25 February. To the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, to respond to an application – under the Terrorism Act, no less – from the West Midlands Police. They are demanding that I hand over notes I made in the 1980s during my investigation into the Birmingham pub bombings, in the hope that these will help them to track down one of the two surviving bombers. A bit late, you may think, given that the bombings took place nearly fifty years ago, and my investigation, which led to the release of six innocent men, was concluded in 1991. What kept them so long? The short answer is that for many years the West Midlands Police, in common with much of the legal profession, were content to believe that the six men whose convictions had been quashed were in fact guilty. In the years that followed I lost count of the number of people who contacted me saying things like: ‘I had dinner with Lord Justice so-and-so last night and you should have heard what he was saying about the Birmingham Six.’

What has brought about this sudden interest in tracking down the real culprits? The answer is Justice 4 the 21, a campaign organised by relatives of the victims. The West Midlands Police are belatedly conducting a professional investigation. This has not, however, stopped them being denounced by supporters of the campaign for not trying hard enough. I have also been denounced. In the early days, the abuse came from people who believed that the Birmingham Six had been wrongly exonerated. Now it comes from those who seem to think that my refusal to name one of the bombers, on the grounds that it would be a breach of my obligation as a journalist to protect my sources, is all that stands in the way of justice. I am not sure the police believe this, but blaming me helps to take the heat off them.

This is not my first appearance at the Old Bailey. It was here, in January 1988, that I witnessed Lord Chief Justice Lane and two colleagues contemptuously dismiss the first appeal of the men who became known as the Birmingham Six. ‘The longer this hearing has gone on,’ Lord Lane said, ‘the more convinced we have become that the verdict of the jury was correct.’ The appeal hearing lasted six weeks, making it the longest in British history, and attracted worldwide attention. The jury box had been set aside for so-called ‘distinguished observers’. I sat there day after day in the company of Ludovic Kennedy, the doyen of miscarriages of justice cases; Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, the archbishop of Armagh; and a revolving cast of politicians and clergymen from both sides of the Irish Sea. At one point even the archbishop of New York was represented. It was through watching the appeal court judges that I realised it is possible to be both brilliant and stupid. No detail escaped their attention, but they entirely missed the big picture.