Don, much as I dislike having to disagree with you I think I have to on two distinct points. a) the villain of the piece; I dont think you can say there is one villain, or even one piece, come to that. The bombing and the subsequent abuse of the legal process were different events each with their own villains.

As to the bombing; the rights and wrongs of armed struggle are deep and it is to easy to stand on one side or another and ignore the truth of the other side. To call people who lay bombs in what they see as a just war cowards and say "what army starts blowing up civilians out for a pint", well the British and American armies have been doing it for years all round the world; from Hiroshima and Dresden to the Childrens hosptal in Tripoli to the wedding party in Iraq.

As for the miscarriage of justice; I think we can be very clear that the Birmingham six were entirely innocent and it was only the accumulated proof that it could not possibly have been them that forced the hand of the authorities into reviewing their convictions. But the real bastards in the process were not the police carried away in the emotions of the atrocity but the judicial system which time and again ignored overwhelming evidence because it would call into question the probity of the legal system itself.