Birmingham Six are freed after 16 years in jail. The six innocent men – Paddy Joe Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter, Billy Power and Johnny Walker had been found guilty of placing bombs in Birmingham pubs in 1974 that killed 21 people and injured more than 100. At a time when public fury was at its height following the bombings, an over-zealous West-Midland police force beat confessions out of the innocent men and fabricated/altered notes of the confessions. One of the six Paddy Hill stated on his release, ‘The police told us from the start they knew we hadn’t done it. They didn’t care who had done it.’
As early as 1976, Fathers Denis Faul and Raymond Murray published a detailed document questioning the men’s convictions.
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