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The Case of False Confessions - The Birmingham Six
📻 Episode #168
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Nov 02, 2020
About This Episode
The thing about torture is that it works, at least if your only goal is to find a scapegoat.
The Case
The thing about torture is that it works, at least if your only goal is to find a scapegoat.
Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin take us to Birmingham, England. In 1972, two pubs were bombed, and six innocent Irish men were tortured into giving false confessions. The Birmingham Six were freed in 1991, but the crime’s never been solved. To this day, the public demands to know who really planted those bombs.
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:03:51“Speaker 1: and burned to death. Others were impaled by falling beams. Speaker 1: First responders arrived and began working desperately to rescue survivors. Speaker 1: At the same time, police were frantically trying to evacuate Speaker 1: the tavern in the town, but they couldn't clear it Speaker 1: fast enough. At eight twenty seven pm, a second homemade”
00:15:13“Speaker 1: Like Billy, they claimed that they were IRA members and Speaker 1: that they'd planted both pub bombs. Somehow, Patty Hill and Speaker 1: Jerry Hunter were holdouts. They refused to sign confessions despite Speaker 1: the torture. Police would later claim that Patty and Jerry Speaker 1: verbally confessed, which Patty denies. The four written confessions were”
00:26:36“Speaker 3: terribly wrong. So there was a real sense at the Speaker 3: time that the system was in crisis. People couldn't have Speaker 3: confidence in the system because there were so many wrongful Speaker 3: convictions happening. And on the day the Birmingham Six were Speaker 3: released from prison, the Home Secretary stood up in Parliament”
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← #167 Junk Science - Roadside Drug Test Evidence #169 False Confessions - Emerson Stevens →
Also on the podcast: #115 False Confessions - Origin Story · #116 False Confessions - Robert Davis · #117 False Confessions - Dixmoor 5