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THE IRISH GOVERNMENT rejected a request by the Birmingham Six to act as bail bondsman amid concerns that it could prove embarrassing, state files reveal.
The previously top-secret documents describe the deliberations that took place within official circles in Dublin over the request of high-profile male lawyer Gareth Peirce.
Peirce made the request in late 1990, just months before the men finally got out of jail after the London Court of Appeal overturned their convictions.
Bail is an option once the case has been referred to the Court of Appeal.
Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, John Walker, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny and Billy Power served 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering 21 people in the 1974 IRA pub bombings in Birmingham.
The exchanges between Peirce and a senior official at the Irish embassy in London and the official’s subsequent correspondence with high-ranking colleagues in Dublin are described in documents released under the 30-year rule.
On November 21, 1990, the first secretary of the Irish embassy, Paul Murray, wrote to Dublin: “On the matter of bail, your request (from Peirce) to the Government is for symbolic rather than practical reasons and I believe that it is not. you can press “.
However, on December 10, Murray reported that Peirce was seeking an “immediate decision” on the matter, as he wanted to submit the bond documents the next day.
The following day, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Gallagher, outlined the pros and cons of providing bail in a document that was stamped as read by Taoiseach Charles Haughey.
He said the arguments in favor were “largely political but also humanitarian.”
“If the government rejects the bail, and this is made public, it is very likely that there will be severe criticism of the decision, especially from the men themselves,” he wrote.
He pointed to Peirce’s argument that it was difficult to get enough people to act as guarantors.
In setting out the arguments against bail, Gallagher wrote: “The Court of Appeals, which is extremely sensitive to cases that will be referred to it by the Home Secretary, could view a government decision to post bail as an effort to lobby politics about him. and could react negatively to the move. “
Outlining a second reason, he continued: “It could be embarrassing for the Government if (a) the Court refused to accept him as a bailman, on the basis of some technicality or another; b) the Court, having accepted the Government as guardian, refused to grant bail to the men; and (c) the Court, having granted bail with the Government acting as guarantor, decided to uphold some or all of the sentences ”.
Gallagher said that while the move would not be unprecedented, it would seem “strange”, in particular to “English public opinion”, that the government would grant bail in a case of “this gravity” involving six men who had been convicted. for the “Most serious crimes”.
In another paper written the same day, Government Secretary Dermot Nally stated that “the effect of the precedent could be terrible.”
In the end, the government decided not to pay the bail.
A top-secret, coded statement from Gallagher to the Irish ambassador in London, Andrew O’Rourke, told him to inform Peirce of the decision.
“In doing so, I know the embassy will emphasize that, as always, the Government would like to be as helpful as possible in all appropriate ways with all aspects of the case,” he wrote.
He said Peirce should be told that the government believes he will not be legally allowed to remain on bail.
“It would be legally inadmissible for the government to assume the obligations of a surety or guarantor of an application for bail before a British court in respect of persons over whom it has no jurisdiction or control,” he wrote.
As a guide for the ambassador, Gallagher explained that the government would be obligated to ensure that anyone for whom it provided bail would appear for trial.
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While he said there was no reason to suggest that any of the men would not show up, he stated: “The government would have no effective measures, in fact, probably no open measures to satisfy this obligation in this case.”
In the event, no request for bail was filed on behalf of the men at the preliminary hearing of the case in December.
Three months later, the men left the Old Bailey as free men.
The recently published articles are contained in the national archives archive reference number 2020/17/52.
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