My thoughts: I wasn’t born until 1986, a year after Chris Mullin was asked to write about the Birmingham Six, but I was vaguely aware of it as a huge miscarriage of justice.
Until I read this book I didn’t know exactly how egregious the behaviour of the West Midlands police, and their Lancashire colleagues, truly was. Not only did they violently assault the six men, they fabricated confessions, threatened their lives and basically tortured them. The police falsified their own records and even the officers not directly involved turned a blind eye to the activities of their colleagues.
This led to six men spending over almost two decades in prison despite being completely innocent of all of the charges they were convicted on. All they were guilty of really was being Irish in Birmingham and locatable.
Mullin was a journalist and MP and always seems to have been supportive of the six men’s innocence and the culpability of the police and legal system that allowed the real bombers to go free – and even leave the country. He identified and interviewed the real culprits and names them in this edition of his book, they are dead, and he is not at risk of reprisals.
The book is compelling reading, like the best thriller, but not fiction at all – the lives of six men, their families, friends and the victims of the bombings in 1974 were altered forever and despite being set free eventually, there was no real justice done here.
The police officers were never convicted, the judge and lawyers never apologised for their roles, the dodgy forensic scientist might have lost his job but never admitted fault, and of course the actual bombers never saw the inside of a court room (one of them did, but he claimed to have only been involved in making the devices).
It’s a terrible tragic story and one that should really be more widely understood as the repercussions from the case reverberate in the justice system even today, and should remind us all that the system, from police to courts is not always blind or indeed just.
The book itself is a feat of investigative work and determination, Mullin is a great writer and conveys the sense of hopelessness and then the glimmer of light given as this case moves back and forth between courts, Parliament and the press. His attention to detail, critical eye and engaging style make this both an enjoyable reading experience and a jolting horror at how so many were so betrayed by the system.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 