A Thousand Blows actor Stephen Graham at police abuse summit

The actor and his wife Hannah Walters, currently co-starring in Disney show A Thousand Blows, attended an event marking 50 years since the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham Six, who were violently abused by police until some falsely confessed to planting IRA bombs in Birmingham pubs. 

Speakers included investigative journalist Chris Mullin, who helped prove the men’s innocence by tracking down the real bombers. 

They were cleared and released in 1991, after more than 15 years in prison.

The meeting on Wednesday (March 5) heard repeated warnings that police misconduct and the framing of innocent people remained live issues, not relics of the past.

“We know that too many people are still being convicted for serious crimes that they didn’t commit,” said Liverpool Labour MP Kim Johnson, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Miscarriages of Justice.

Kim Johnson MP, chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Miscarriages of Justice said too many people were still being convicted of crimes they hadn’t committed (Image: Andrew Aitchison) Mr Mullin said one possible example was that of supposed killer nurse Lucy Letby.

“It’s not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and it looks like it’s unravelling,” he said. “I think the medical establishment and the legal establishment will fight like hell to preserve those convictions.”

Letby’s appeal barrister Mark McDonald was in the audience.

But the meeting began with a discussion about three major wrongful convictions over IRA bombings in the 1970s: the Maguire Seven, the Birmingham Six, and the Guildford Four.

Patrick Maguire, of the Maguire Seven, said he was brutally beaten at age 14 as police demanded he confess.

“I could hear my brother next door having the same thing done,” he said. “His head banging against the wall.”

Patrick Maguire, whose family – dubbed The Maguire Seven – were falsely accused and convicted of IRA bomb-making, described how he and his brother had been brutally beaten by police (Image: Andrew Aitchison) Lawyer Alastair Logan OBE, who represented the Guildford Four, said police pointed guns at them and threatened to harm their relatives.

“The assaults are criminal offences,” he said. “The threats to kill are criminal offences. The way in which they achieved the conviction was on industrial scale perjury.

“They produced a set of detention sheets in order to back up what the officers were saying. Those detention sheets were forgeries… so what we are looking at is crime on an enormous level.”

Asked if he believed suspects could be similarly framed today, he said: “I do. I think if the case is serious enough… then the rules will be bent. That will happen.”

Lawyer Gareth Peirce, who helped exonerate the Birmingham Six, agreed policing still suffered from “noble cause corruption”, where officers break rules if they think suspects are guilty and they are serving “a greater good”.

Common victims now are Muslim terror suspects, she alleged, but the “brutality” of old has been replaced by new tactics, like planting evidence.

Gareth Peirce, who was played by Emma Thompson in Birmingham Six drama In The Name Of The Father, said she knew of more recent cases where evidence was planted against Muslim terror suspects (Image: Andrew Aitchison) “It’s the same story,” she said. “Anything goes. Anything is justified. The courts won’t interfere. The jurors will think it their duty to convict.”

Michael Mansfield KC, who worked on the Birmingham and Guildford cases, warned two vital avenues for detecting such miscarriages of justice had deteriorated simultaneously.

The first, he said, was serious, properly resourced investigative journalism.

The second was the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), whose job is to reinvestigate cases and send potential miscarriages to the Court of Appeal. It has seen vast budget cuts since 2010.

Mr Mansfield mentioned Newsquest’s recent revelation that CCRC investigators’ caseloads have doubled since 2010, with the average staffer now juggling dozens of cases.

“We know, many of us in this room, that the CCRC is not fit for purpose and that it needs a root and branch reform,” said Ms Johnson.

Stephen Graham and Hannah Walters can be seen in the audience at Wednesday’s Houses of Parliament summit on miscarriages of justice (Image: Andrew Aitchison) Justice Committee chairman Andy Slaughter, who said he would investigate Newsquest’s caseload revelations, was in the audience.

So were East End murder convict Jason Moore’s sister Kirstie and his pro bono lawyer Mark Bowen. 

Jason is serving life for a fatal Gants Hill stabbing now under CCRC review after Newsquest uncovered fresh evidence undermining his conviction. 

Also watching on was the sister of Barry George, who was wrongly convicted of murdering Jill Dando and has never been compensated.

A spokesperson for Graham and Walters – who have jointly appeared in BBC dramas Time and Boiling Point, and two Pirates of the Caribbean films – declined to comment.