Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991                   TAG: 9103150860
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium

RELEASE PUTS BRITISH LEGAL SYSTEM ON TRIAL

The government announced a top-to-bottom review of the criminal justice system on Thursday. Minutes before, the Court of Appeal freed six men convicted of killing 21 people in a pair of Irish Republican Army pub bombings in Birmingham in central England in 1974.

Ron Hadfield, the chief constable of the West Midlands police, said today that a team of detectives would reopen the bombing investigation, but he stressed that the trail was now very cold.

"It's not easy to go back over 16 years . . . and start re-interviewing witnesses, particularly when some have died," Hadfield told a news conference in Birmingham.

At the same time, an investigation into how the West Midlands police originally handled the case in 1974 is nearing completion, said John Evans, the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall.

Less than two years ago, the Court of Appeal freed three men and a woman convicted of killing six people in two other pub bombings. Six other people are awaiting a Court of Appeal hearing on their convictions for operating an IRA bomb factory - convictions that the government no longer defends.

These cases, Home Secretary Kenneth Baker told the House of Commons, raise "a number of serious issues which must be a cause of concern to us all."

Gerard Hunter, one of the six Birmingham convicts, put it more strongly: "There is something radically wrong with the system of justice in this country. It is seriously flawed when there are so many people tried and convicted who are innocent."

In addition to Hunter, 44, the freed defendants were: Richard McIlkenny, 57; Johnny Walker, 55; Bill Power, 45; Hugh Callaghan, 60; and Patrick Hill, 46.

Minutes after the defendants emerged triumphantly from the Old Bailey court, Baker announced he was appointing a Royal Commission, the first such high-level body set up since the Conservative Party won power under Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

The commission will review every stage of the criminal process, from investigation on through to appeal. Baker said the process might take two years.

The workings of the Court of Appeal, which affirmed the Birmingham convictions in 1988, emerged as a critical issue.

The Court of Appeal is the first appellate level, before the Law Lords of the House of Lords. Appeals are heard by panels chosen from the court's 28 members.

The Birmingham convictions were reversed after the government abandoned scientific and police evidence as unreliable. That left only the confessions of four of the six, which they claimed had been made after they were beaten by police.