Hugh Callaghan, a former welder, a follower of Aston Villa football club, born in Ardoyne, Belfast, died late last month aged 93. A man who loved music, he was singing to his nurses until shortly before his final heart attack. He was a gentle, generous individual whom I was lucky enough to meet. He had every right to pass a quiet life, but he spent 16 years in prison for a crime he did not commit: along with other members of the Birmingham Six, as they were labelled, he was wrongfully convicted of killing 21 people in 1974 in the bombings of two pubs in Birmingham.
One of the many shocking aspects of the case was the determination of the British establishment – the law, police, politicians, media – to maintain the men’s guilt, and keep them in prison. It would be “an appalling vista”, said the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, in 1980, if the police were found guilty of violence, threats and perjury – so much so that it would be better if the truth were suppressed. The question for the present is whether, in a time of mounting reports of police misconduct, similar miscarriages and suppressions could happen now.
