Six from North over murder case in Birmingham

November 26, 1974

SIX Ulster-born men from Birmingham were taken into custody amid massive security in Birmingham yesterday to Thursday, accused of the murder of a schoolgirl killed in last Thursday’s bomb massacre in the city. They were charged with the murder of Jane Davis (17), one of 19 people killed in the two pub explosions.

Armed police were among dozens of officers on duty in and around the city’s Victoria Law Courts and anyone entering the building was searched and asked for identification.

The men appeared separately in the dock during the eight-minute hearing and reporting restrictions were not lifted.

Each man appeared accompanied by a detective in the packed courtroom where nearly fifty uniformed and plainclothes officers, some armed, were on duty.

The six were: Hugh Callaghan (44); Patrick Joseph Heuvel (30); Robert Gerrard Hunter (29), all unemployed; Noel Richard McIlkenny (31), millwright’s mate; William Power (29) unemployed, and John Walker (39) crane operator.

They all live in Birmingham, but the police, who guard their homes, keep the addresses secret.

They were accused of being concerned about each other in the murder of Miss Davis, a sixth-form high school student who died in the explosion at the Tavern in the Town pub.

Neither Mr Ian Gould, representing Callaghan, Hill and Power, nor Mr Anthony Curtis, appearing for the others, objected to the remand or applied for bail.

Mr Maurice Buck, Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) for the West Midlands, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Robinson, head of the region’s CID, and other senior police officers were in court for the hearing.

First in the dock was Walker, followed by Hunter, Hill, Power, McIlkenny and finally Callaghan.

Police held back a crowd of 500 at the back of the courthouses as the men were chased away under heavy guard. There were shouts of “dirty Irish bastards” and “dirty pigs” as a blue police van took off, escorted by seven unmarked police cars, two patrol cars and two motorcyclists.

Amid a very hostile environment against the Irish in Britain following the Birmingham pub bombings days earlier, six men were charged with the bombings. Despite the men, who became known as the Birmingham Six, being innocent of the bombings, they were all sentenced to life in what was one of the worst miscarriages of justice in the British justice system.