When the Court of Appeal allowed the appeals of the Birmingham Six for the murder of 21 people in 1974, and set them free after 16yrs in prison, the judges said that nothing obliged or entitled them to say whether they thought that the 6 men were innocent. It is exclusively the jury's function to decide guilt or innocence. Judges in the appeal court are under a duty merely to say whether the conviction was wrongful or not. The presumption of innocence, which every accused is entitled to, abides until it has been overcome by evidence which convinces the jury of the guilt of the accused. Any conviction which is quashed on appeal does not revive the presumption. This book puts the record straight about the most famous criminal case in 'recent' British legal history, explaining to both legal and non-legal readers how many people misunderstand our criminal justice system, and how the supporters of those wrongfully convicted tend to persuade the British public that justice has indeed 'miscarried'. The author puts the case for an unbiased perspective on the trial of the Birmingham Six and other appeals, highlighting the true value of circumstantial evidence and pointing out how such evidence is so often preferable to the fallibility of eye-witness testimony. He also includes a European dimension. Finally, he questions whether the jury system itself can survive contemporary society. With Diary of Events, Appendix, Notes and Index.

Throughout the twentieth century, administrations have wrestled with allaying public concern over national disasters and social scandals. This book seeks to describe historically the use of public inquiries, and demonstrates why their methods continued to deploy until 1998 the ingrained habits of lawyers, particularly by issuing warning letters in order to safeguard witnesses who might be to blame. Under the influence of Lord Justice Salmon, the vital concern about systems and services allotted to social problems was relegated to the identification of individual blameworthiness. The book explains why the last inquiry under that system, into the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ under Lord Saville’s chairmanship, cost £200 million and took twelve and a half years (instead of two years). ‘Never again’, was the Government’s muted cry as the method of investigating the public concern was eventually replaced by the Inquiries Act 2005, by common consent a good piece of legislation. The overriding principle of fairness to witnesses was confirmed by Parliament to those who are ‘core participants’ to the event, but with limited rights to participate. The public inquiry, the author asserts, is now publicly administered as a Commission of Inquiry, and is correctly regarded as a branch of public administration that focuses on the systemic question of what went wrong, as opposed to which individuals were to blame.

"Over the years of the developing judicial review of ministerial and governmental decisions, Louis Blom-Cooper was a leading advocate who grew up with the advent of a distinctive brand of public law. His range of public activities, both inside and out of the courtroom, saw him dubbed by his colleagues as a polymath practitioner. They included chairmanship of plural public inquiries in child abuse and mental health, media contributions and innovation in penal reform. This book is a collection of his essays, prefaced by a self-examination of his unorthodox philosophy towards the law in action. It covers a variety of socio-legal topics that express his ambition to inform the public on the workings of the legal system. This involves a discussion of the history of Britain's unwritten and, in the author's view, insufficiently interpreted constitution. It reflects a commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and portrays its international origins. It also opines on crime and punishment in the functioning of the courts and elsewhere, and the political shift from the penal optimism of the 1970s to the reactionary punitiveness of the post-1990s. The essays conclude with a miscellany of affairs, reflecting on professional practices and the author's judicial heroes Lord Reid and Lord Bingham."--Bloomsbury Publishing.