The Guildford Four won their freedom on what many still believe to be a technicality - mainly that the notes of their interrogation were not "contemporaneous".
The Birmingham Six? The court of inquiry found that the evidence against them had been fabricated and their "confessions" beaten out of them - or so it is frequently claimed. "That's inaccurate - the Court found that SOME of the evidence against them was unreliable. Their convictions were 'unsafe' .... and as such they were freed." David Vance.
Barry George? An acceptable prosecution case which was just not strong enough and so the overturning of his conviction was correct. Had the result been made on "The balance of probabilities" which is so often the benchmark in civil cases then ....
Judith Ward had presented herself to the police and confessed to the 1974 coach bombing on the M62.
In a free society one must bend over backwards in criminal cases to be fair about convictions - and we do!
I make no comment about the guilt or innocence of the above but clearly not guilty verdicts and convictions overturned as 'unsafe' do not necessarily represent innocence and yet some are far too quick to equate the two.
In many such high profile cases the 'technicality' becomes the true bugbear.
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