Welcome to Hard Talk. I'm Stephen Sacker. It is 50 years this month since the IRA's murderous

Birmingham pub bombings, which precipitated one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in English

legal history. At that time, Paddy Hill, who's my guest in this interview recorded in 2011,

was a young Northern Irishman trying to make a living in England.

The IRA bombing campaign on the British mainland was at its height.

On the 21st of November, 1974, two bombs exploded at pubs in Birmingham.

21 people were killed, 182 injured. Hill and five others were arrested within hours. The men who

came to be known as the Birmingham Six maintained their innocence and accused the police of

forcing them to sign false confessions. After 16 years, those convictions were finally quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Two decades after he was freed, Paddy Hill spoke to me in Glasgow. What was the psychological

impact of being falsely accused and convicted of mass murder? And had this wronged man been able to rebuild his life.

Paddy Hill, welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you very much, Stevens. Pleasure to be here.

It's almost 20 years now since your release. Do you feel like a free man today?

No, never. When you're in jail fighting your wrongful conviction and through the

experience of ourselves and of course other prisoners, you never think of the outside world.

And of course, everything is just geared up for getting to the court of appeal and praying that

and wishing that you win your case.

You don't have any plans really about the outside world. And of course, there's no sense to

even be very careful what you wish for. For when you get it, you may not know what to do with

it. And that is very, very up for us. We are wishing to get our freedom back and

then suddenly you get it and believe me it is nothing like you imagine it. If you would

have told me today I got released that I would not be able to handle the outside world, I would

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