Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

The ‘Guildford Four’ and the ‘Birmingham Six’ 453
together and they were all subjected to extreme pressure during the interrogations
that were to follow (Mullin, 1989). The first to confess was Power. He
signed a six-page confession, implicating himself and five of his friends in the
Birmingham bombings. The sixth person, Hugh Callaghan, who was not travelling
with the others at the time of their arrest, was arrested the following
night at his home. Like McIlkenny, Power and Walker, Callaghan was to sign
a confession to the Birmingham bombings. Two of the men (Hill & Hunter) did
not write or sign any self-incriminating statements, but the police allege that
they made some verbal admissions which both have always strongly denied
that they ever made.
The six men were charged with the largest number of murders in British
history and in June 1975 they were tried in Lancaster. The trial lasted 45 days.
The evidence against the six men consisted of Dr Skuse’s forensic evidence
and the written confessions of four of the men. There was also circumstantial
evidence about associations with known IRA people. The admissibility of the
confessions was disputed by the defence on the basis that they had been beaten
out of them. The judge allowed the confessions to go before the jury. All six
defendants were convicted. As the Judge, Mr Justice Bridge, sentenced them
to life imprisonment he stated
You stand convicted on each of twenty-one counts, on the clearest and most overwhelming
evidence I have ever heard, of the crime of murder (Mullin, 1989, p. 206).
As subsequent evidence indicated, the Birmingham Six defendants were
wrongly convicted in 1975, in spite of the Judge’s strong words about ‘overwhelming
evidence’. In the United Kingdom during the late 1980s new evidence
was gathered and public feeling about the defendants’ innocence grew. Various
people argued for their innocence, including Christopher Mullin, a Member
of Parliament. Sixteen years were to pass before the Appeal Court eventually
quashed the convictions of the six men.
On 28 October 1985, World in Action, a Granada Television programme, presented
evidence that seriously challenged, if not completely demolished, the
validity of Dr Skuse’s forensic science findings. The programme had commissioned
two scientists to carry out a series of Greiss tests on a number of common
substances, including nitrocellulose. The results showed that there are a number
of common substances that will give a positive reaction on a Greiss test,
including those that can be obtained from being in contact with playing cards.
The five men who were tested for nitroglycerine had been playing cards shortly
before their arrest, which could explain why two of them apparently had traces
of nitroglycerine on their hands. In other words, the positive Greiss test reaction
on the hands of two of the men could quite easily have been due to an innocent
contamination.
Mullin (1989) claims to have traced and interviewed three of the men who
are responsible for the Birmingham bombings. According to Mullin, they made
it clear to him that none of the Birmingham Six were ever members of the
Birmingham IRA, nor had they in any way been involved in the bombings
for which they were convicted. The information that these people gave of the