United Kingdom ยท England and Wales, Lancaster Crown Court
The Birmingham Six (Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker): wrongly convicted, exonerated
Convicted of Murder of 21 people in the 21 November 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.
Convicted15 August 1975
Sentence21 life sentences each
Years in prison16
Exonerated14 March 1991
How the conviction was overturnedCourt of appeal quashed the convictions, Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), London1,2,3
What went wrong
- Confessions that the men said police beat out of them
- Police fabrication of evidence
- Forensic evidence later shown to be unreliable
From conviction to exoneration
- Bombs at two Birmingham pubs killed 21 people, and the six men were arrested in the following days.2,3
- Convicted at Lancaster Crown Court and each given 21 life sentences.3
- The Court of Appeal quashed the convictions and the six were freed after about 16 years in prison.1,2,3
- Richard McIlkenny died.4
- Hugh Callaghan died in London aged 93.4
- Patrick (Paddy) Hill died aged 80.3,5
Compensation
Between 840,000 and 1.2 million pounds each, as reported by The Irish News
Today
All six convictions were quashed in 1991. Richard McIlkenny died in 2006, Hugh Callaghan in May 2023 and Patrick Hill in December 2024.
Sources
- The Irish News, 30th anniversary of release of Birmingham Six (15 March 2021)
- HISTORY.com, Birmingham Six released
- Yahoo News (syndicated), Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six wrongly convicted for pub bombings which killed 21 people (obituary) (December 2024)
- ITV News (UTV), Hugh Callaghan, one of Birmingham Six, dies aged 93 (2 June 2023)
- The Irish Times, Paddy Hill obituary: One of the Birmingham Six wrongly convicted of IRA bombings (11 January 2025)