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Four | Gregory Parsons starved
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Birmingham
Six
'I'm dead inside'
Last week
it was reported that Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six would receive
a huge payout for his 16 years in prison. But, he says, nothing
can compensate him for what he has been through
By Simon
Hattenstone, June 17, 2002
Eleven years
after his release from jail, Paddy Hill is back in the news.
It has been reported that Hill, the best known of the Birmingham
Six who were wrongly convicted of planting the pub bombs that
killed 21 people in 1974, is to receive £1m compensation.
I phone him to ask if he would agree to an interview. Silence.
Then he erupts. "No. I would not. Not after that fucking
shite in the newspapers last week. I am not getting £1m,
nothing has been agreed, and I did not talk to the newspaper
that quoted me."
I hold the
phone away from my burning ear, and say I would also like to
talk to him about Mojo, the organisation he set up to fight miscarriages
of justice. In the early 90s he gave a rare and desperate interview
in which he admitted he could no longer feel anything for anybody
in the world beyond his mum, his girlfriend Alison and those
wrongfully jailed. Since then, he has split up with Alison and
his mother has died.
Despite his
anger, it's been a good week for Hill. He has just heard that
one of his close friends, Satpal Ram, will be released
from prison after the government conceded its right to keep him
jailed against the parole board's recommendation. Ram is a typical
Mojo case - he always claimed he stabbed a man in self-defence
after he was attacked in a Birmingham restaurant in 1986, but
he was later convicted of murder. The more we talk about Mojo,
the more Hill softens. Eventually, he says, I should pop round
to his office just down the road from the Guardian in Farringdon,
London.
In the photos
we used to see of Hill in the newspapers, when he was one of
Britain's most hated men, he had jet black hair in a pudding
basin cut, mutton-chop sideboards, and a scar across his lower
cheek. He was 12 stone, and a stocky bruiser. Today he is skinny,
with white hair. He still looks tough, though. His blue eyes
- part ice, part fire - defy you to see what they have seen.
"Prison kills you a little bit each day, and sooner or later
you wake up and you don't feel nothing," he says, stressing
every word, slowly, deliberately. "Me, I died in prison,
inside."
There are no
easy comforts in Hill's world. When he travels from jail to jail,
spreading the word, he tells prisoners that the transition to
life outside is brutal. He presents himself both as a survivor
and the personification of a post-prison wreckage. "It's
only about a year or so after you get out, if you've got the
intelligence, and, most importantly, if you've got the balls
to admit to yourself, that you realise, I'm in shit here, I'm
in trouble. But a lot of people turn to drink or drugs because
they can't face reality."
Hill's chest
sounds raw with infection. He swigs from a medicine bottle, then
relights a kingsize rollup. "Once you go into a prison and
you're innocent, every fucking part of your relationship is based
on fucking lies. Families come to see you and you're given the
biggest load of bollocks, everything is all right, blah blah.
And you're doing exactly the same thing, telling your family,
'Everything is all right, yes, yes, don't worry'. How can everything
be all right when you're serving fucking 21 life sentences for
nothing?" As his voice rises, the veins bulge in his neck.
"You don't
tell them the truth, for the simple reason is they've got enough
on their plate outside and you've got enough on your plate inside.
You're lying for the best of reasons: to protect your family."
He says even now he has never been able to talk about prison
to his family. "It's like a mental block. You find your
family has all grown up without you. You feel like an intruder,
you're completely isolated. They talk about things they can relate
to, and the only fucking thing you can relate to is four walls,
a door, and a fucking barred fucking window. So it's like two
strangers from different countries, one speaking in his language,
and you're speaking in yours, and you don't understand each other."
Had he thought
he could come out after 16 years and pick up the pieces, just
like that? Oh no, he says, his wife had divorced him and his
six children had grown up. After a while he was forced to confront
another terrible truth. "I didn't feel nothing for my kids.
I feel empty. My kids are like strangers to me." He points
outside. "My son's a chef across the road, and he just came
over to see me, and I don't feel nothing."
He says he's
proud of the way his children have coped, but he knows that's
not enough. "I feel sorry for my kids because they are never
ever going to have a real father-and-son or father-and-daughter
relationship with me. But at least I'm honest enough to admit
that to myself."
It's a punishing
honesty, for everybody. He tells me about the time his daughter
broke down on him. "She said, 'Where are you going', and
I said, 'I'm going to see Jimmy Robinson [one of four men imprisoned
for the murder of Carl Bridgewater, but whose convictions were
quashed in 1997 after they had served 17 years] in prison'. My
daughter just lost it; she was hysterical. She said to me, 'Dad,
I don't have many memories of you when you went away, but I tell
you what, I've got lots of memories after you went. I remember
being locked up in homes, being spat at, being locked in cupboards,
being thrown into baths of cold water.'" He comes to a stop.
"My kids ended up in a home. You hear all this bollocks
about kids from broken homes, but our families weren't broken,
they were torn to pieces overnight. Within a matter of days we
were the most hated people in the country and our families suffered
all that."
Hill says his
family got it worse because he was so well known in Birmingham.
Everyone knew Paddy Hill. He was the guy who sang in the pubs
and clubs, told jokes; the one who'd done any number of jobs,
the one with the violent streak who'd have a go at anyone who
called him for his Irishness. He had come over from Belfast at
15 to discover a city that carried job vacancies saying,"No
paddies, no wogs". He had thought England would welcome
him; a young lad whose father and brother had been British army
stalwarts.
By the time
he was set up for the pub bombings, he had 17 convictions, mainly
for violence. "I have no scruples about violence. I used
to carry blades, swords, hatchets." Hill's honesty verges
on the psychopathic. He wants you to know every unpleasant trait.
He tells me how he would go on the rampage in prison. "I
didn't have any scruples about getting a blade or stabbing screws."
Even now, he
says, he could turn at any moment. "The only thing that
frightens me is me. That's why I don't touch alcohol. I could
use violence quite easy. If somebody starts getting on my face,
I'm fucking right in. If I had a gun in my hand I'd shoot you.
I don't give a fuck about going to jail. You could take me to
jail today and throw away the key. And I wouldn't lose any sleep
over it, providing I'm guilty."
And that's
the point. I tell him he sounds far too untameable to be an IRA
man. "I have not had anything to do with the IRA. Never.
I'm Republican and I believe in a united Ireland, but that doesn't
make me a fucking bomber. The cops told us, 'We know you're innocent,
but we don't give a fuck who done it, we only want bodies.'"
Hill is occasionally
terrifying, often tender and vulnerable. He returns to the story
of his daughter. "She said, 'You spend half an hour with
us and fuck off to your prison. Why?' And I sat down, I'm not
ashamed, I broke my heart, I cried my eyes out in front of my
kids. And I told them the reason I was going to see Jimmy Robinson
was because in here [he holds his heart] I feel something for
him, in here I feel fuck all for any of you, and that's the God's
honest truth." He's almost crying again. "You know,
I've probably spent half of my time out here wishing that I'd
never come out of jail. I don't feel a part of it."
Last week he
was reported as saying that it was time to put the past behind
him. Is that possible, I ask? "I have never said that in
my life," he screams. The veins are bulging in his neck
again. "I keep telling people you can't put it behind you.
And to hear all this old bollocks, 'Time is a wonderful healer',
time doesn't heal fuck all. The only thing that time does, if
you're strong enough, is helps you to cope with it a little bit
better."
As for the
compensation, he's still waiting for the offer. All he knows
is that it will be less than £1m, and a good chunk of that
will be made up of the interest accrued over the years. Would
£1m satisfy him? "As far as I'm concerned, the Queen
hasn't got enough money to compensate one of us, never mind the
six of us. If I got £1m compensation plus the interest
I wouldn't be screaming. I wouldn't be happy, but at least I'd
accept it."
Actually, he
says, money means nothing to him. Of the £300,000 he has
received, he has spent more than £100,000 campaigning for
miscarriages of justice. "That's why I'm on fucking £75
a week income support."
As for the
first £50,000 each of the Birmingham Six received, he says
they blew it when they came out of jail. "We were bringing
our grandkids out and buying them stuff down Oxford Street, and
all we were trying to do was buy love and affection. It doesn't
work."
What galls
him even more than the money is the lack of a public apology.
"All they would have to do is say, 'Listen, we got it wrong
and we're sorry'. Believe me, they are going to apologise publicly
because I'll take them all the way to fucking Europe for it,
and they're going to accept liability."
Hill shows
me the tattoos on his arms, most of them done in prison with
a darning needle. I ask him what they are, and he gives me a
giggly guided tour. "That was a little girl kneeling at
an altar rail, this was my wife, this one with four names was
done when I only had four kids in the 60s." He lifts up
his T-shirt to show me an epic tattoo on his chest. "That's
part of The Wind In The Willows, the babbling brook and the little
rickety bridge and river running under it. I had this half done
when the screws kicked the door in and they took all the ink
and we couldn't finish them."
I ask Hill
if Mojo has given him a sense of purpose, a sense of hope. No,
he says, it's just something he has to do. "Psychiatrists
have told me I have lived in a state of depression, tension,
for so long in prison that it has now become the norm and they
don't think I will ever be repaired." Repaired - the perfect
word.
It all sounds
so bleak. But even he admits there is a future to look forward
to. He is talking to a film-maker who plans to make a movie about
the Birmingham Six, based on Hill's book, and he is also planning
to move to Scotland. Why Scotland, I ask. He smiles shyly. "I
met a girl there after Christmas, New Year, and we just hit it
off. We get on like a house on fire. This is the first time I've
actually wanted to get involved in a relationship... the first
time since I've come out."
Maybe that's
a sign you are returning to the world, I say. He nods silently,
diffidently, hopefully.
Birmingham
Six man wins £1m payout
By Martin
Bright and Amelia Hill, June 9, 2002
Paddy Hill,
who spent 16 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted
of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, is set to receive £1
million compensation from the Government after 10 years of negotiations.
Hill, who plans
to move to Scotland to start a new life, said that, although
not totally satisfied, he would accept the settlement. 'This
is still not enough compensation after spending all that time
in jail for a crime I did not commit and for the brutality suffered
at the hands of the police and prison authorities, but it is
time to move on,' he said.
The 56-year-old
father of six rejected two earlier offers, saying they were 'absolute
insults'.
Lawyers for
Hill and other members of the Birmingham Six will continue to
press for a public apology from the Government for the men's
treatment at the hands of the police and prison authorities.
Hill was convicted
in August 1975 and received 21 life sentences for the pub bombs
in Birmingham city centre, in which 21 people were killed and
189 injured. No one claimed they had carried out the bombings.
Police arrested the men after Hill and four others tried to board
a ferry to Northern Ireland on the night of the bombings to attend
the funeral of a known IRA bomber. All the defendants have repeatedly
proclaimed their innocence.
Hill was released
in March 1991 when the police case against him was overturned
in the Court of Appeal. He did not receive any counselling and
found it difficult to adapt to life on the outside. Three years
ago he founded the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation to help
other ex-prisoners in a similar situation.
His solicitor
Gareth Peirce wrote to Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen
in March, urging him to intervene in 'continuing unresolved injustices'
over the British Government's refusal to acknowledge liability
for the mistreatment of the Birmingham Six.
Peirce said
it was important to extract a full apology because 'influential
people continue to reiterate behind closed doors... that the
men were in fact guilty and escaped life imprisonment only on
a technicality'.
She said the
offer from the British Government was a tribute to Hill's persistent
fight for justice: 'Paddy Hill has achieved his victories against
impossible odds that no other person could have achieved. The
reopening of the case and the final successful appeal were in
large part due to his fight from within prison. This recalculation
should be a bare minimum for the recognition of the enormity
of the crimes committed against him.'
Last December
Hill rejected an offer of £549,932 in compensation. Although
the full offer was over £900,000, the difference was to
be withheld because of various reductions. Hill said he was still
angry about the way he had been treated. The amount has now been
recalculated and the new offer is believed to be in the region
of £1m.
'The Government
still hasn't made any attempt to apologise or compensate adequately
for the distress and heartbreak our families have suffered. I
remain very, very angry that our families have been torn to pieces,'
he said.
In a book about
his 16-year struggle for justice, Hill described an attack on
prisoners by officials at Winson Green prison in Birmingham:
'I was punched and kicked across the room... Somebody grabbed
me by the hair and smashed my head down on the top of the door.
My nose burst apart and the blood ran from it like a tap.'
'Birmingham
Six' Hill rejects pay-out under £1m
By Nick
Paton Walsh, Observer, 19 August 2001
Paddy Hill,
one of the Birmingham Six wrongly convicted of the 1974 IRA pub
bombing, has angrily rejected a compensation offer of less than
£1 million for the 16 years he spent in jail.
More than 10
years after his release, Hill has received an offer from Home
Office officials after an independent assessor calculated that
the 56-year-old was entitled to £941,932 for the time he
spent in jail and the emotional trauma he endured.
In a letter
last month to Hill's solicitors, the Home Office's justice and
victims unit said the offer would take into account a 10 per
cent reduction to cover interest payments on maintenance money
Hill received after his release. An MP has described the letter
as 'spiteful'.
Hill said this
weekend he was 'outraged' by the offer. He believes the sum is
considerably less than settlements made to other victims of miscarriages
of justice.
He told The
Observer: 'I'm disgusted. After all these years they are still
insulting me. This is not about money, but ensuring mistreatment
and corruption on such a scale never happens again. None of my
torturers have been jailed for what they did.'
Hill and five
others were convicted in August 1975 of bombing two Birmingham
city centre pubs in which 21 people died. The convictions were
overturned in 1991.
According to
the assessor employed by the Home Office, the minimum claim for
loss of liberty of this length of time is £360,000, but
Hill has been awarded £130,000. He has also been given
£75,000 for harm to his reputation despite £125,000
being the maximum figure available.
What has angered
Hill most, however, is a Home Office bill for £92,000 interest
on the £300,000 he has received since his release. Bob
Russell, Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester and a member of the
Home Affairs Select Committee, said: 'This strikes me as spiteful.
I would need to know why the sum seems in variance to others.'
The Home Office
said the Home Secretary had no power to alter the amounts.
Former MP apologises
to the Birmingham Six
10 July
1998, Times of London
A former Conservative
MP apologised to the Birmingham Six at the High Court in London
yesterday after claiming in an interview that they were guilty,
even though they had been cleared by the Court of Appeal.
David Evans,
who lost his Welwyn Hatfield seat at the last election, also
paid an undisclosed "appropriate" sum to the six to
settle a libel action over statements he made to pupils at Stanborough
School, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, last year.
The six served
16 years in jail after being wrongfully convicted in 1975 of
the murder of 21 people who died after bombs exploded in pubs
in Birmingham. The appeal court quashed their convictions in
1991.
Benedict Birnberg,
a solicitor representing the six, told Mr Justice Popplewell
that, during an interview at the school, Mr Evans "expressed
the view that the plaintiffs were guilty of the Birmingham pub
bombings". During the interview, he said, Mr Evans added:
"You think the Birmingham Six hadn't killed hundreds before
they caught them?"
Mr Birnberg
told the judge: "Despite the quashing of their convictions
by the Court of Appeal seven years ago, the plaintiffs are concerned
that some people have refused to recognise the truth of that
simple fact."
He said Mr
Evans "unreservedly retracts the allegations he made and
wishes to state that he accepts as proper the verdict of the
Court of Appeal quashing the plaintiffs' convictions for the
Birmingham murders. The defendant has undertaken to the court
that he will not repeat the allegations complained of nor make
any similar allegations concerning the plaintiffs."
He added that
Mr Evans, "accepting that the allegations he made were both
grave and unfounded, has paid to the plaintiffs an appropriate
sum by way of damages."
Clive Ince,
representing Mr Evans, told the judge: "Mr Evans genuinely
regrets the remarks he made about the plaintiffs and is happy
to take this opportunity to retract them. He fully accepts the
verdict of the Court of Appeal quashing the plaintiffs' convictions,
and through me, apologises to the plaintiffs for what he said.
"He regrets
that his off-the-cuff remarks, spoken in the course of an interview
with two school pupils and their teacher, were given national
publicity, but nonetheless the defendant accepts that he should
not have questioned the plaintiffs' innocence."
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
