/ JOURNAL
Error of Judgement
Every time I leave Birmingham or come back to it, close to New St station I walk past the scene of the pub bombings that killed 21, seriously injured 170, and the grotesque and repeated miscarriages of justice that saw the Birmingham Six jailed, and remain jailed, for 16 years.
I'm so glad that I filled in the many gaps in my understanding by finally reading Chris Mullins’ Error of Judgement. An incredible story of an incredible campaign, it's a tale of inhumanity as well as incompetence, institutional failings not just in the police, but the prison service and the judiciary too.
While the story ends with the six finally walking free at the Old Bailey, few of the police officers, prison officers or indeed judiciary receive the punishment their involvement deserved.
The lives of others were ruined, but very few careers.
If you really want to be depressed, read the post-trial careers of the prosecution and judges in the case of the Guildford Four in the same period.
Mullins' writing is always measured, even as he recounts the brutal beatings and abuse the six men endured, It's a necessarily tough read at points, but an inspiring one too. Just enough people harboured enough doubts and had the tenacity to keep asking questions.
The inspiration to read the book came from a combination of sources: the BBC’s extremely fun This Town; coverage by the excellent Birmingham Dispatch that is filling a vital gap in local news here; and my favourite book of the last 12 months: Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe's wonderful book on Northern Ireland, the IRA and a recent history that far more of us living in the UK should know.