which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. it is 50 years this month since the ira's murderous birmingham pub bombings, which precipitated one of the greatest miscarriages ofjustice 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? cheering. the police told us from the start that they knew we hadn't done it! they told us they didn't

care who had done it! they told us that we were selected and that they were going to frame usjust to keep people in there happy! that's what it's all about! paddy hill, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much, stephen. it's a pleasure to be here. it's almost 20 years now since your release. do you feel like a free man today? no. never. uh, when you're injail, fighting your wrongful conviction and through the experiences 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 an old saying, stephen, "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 apt for us. we are wishing to get ourfreedom back. and then suddenly you get it. and believe me, it is nothing like you imagine it. and if you'd have told me the day i got released that i would not be able to handle the outside world, i would have laughed in your face. after what i've been through, living in maximum security prisons, which, to be honest with you, are nothing more than war zones. violence is rife. life is cheap. they're cold, brutal places that are filled with nothing but anger, rage, frustration and violence. and then suddenly you get out. and in prison, if somebody bumps into you in prison, the first thing to think about is stabbing them. because, you know he's going to stab you. it's all about face, macho. and you come outside and you walk down the street and everybody�*s bumping into you. and the panic attacks. we know nothing about money. we got £50,000 when we first came out, three weeks after we got out.

i'd love to sit here and tell you i spent it, i didn't, i squandered it. i was giving it away. but it is 20 years now. yeah. i am amazed that the ferocity of your anger and the complications about your feelings, which you've just described, are still there 20 years on. yeah. because when we got out, of course, you found out so many things after you get out. and it fuels the anger. uh, when i came out, my anger was at this level up here, but that was in respect of myself. i like to think that over the years, that anger has now subsided a bit. but in its place has come another anger. because when we got out, i've always said if what happened to us meant that no one else would be wrongly convicted and tortured and framed, you could walk away. but there is more innocent

people in prison today than there was 50 years ago, 30 year ago, 20 year ago. well, we'll talk about that. we'll talk about your work with other miscarriages ofjustice. but before we get there, i cannot help but turn to something you said only a few weeks ago. you said, "every day all i think about is getting a gun. and killing cops. ..and shooting police." exactly. how can you say that? because that's what i think about. my worst time is the morning —i don't sleep. i went to bed this morning at a 1.15am. i was in the kitchen having a cup of coffee at 3.25am. i went back to bed at 4am and back up again at 6.10am. we don't sleep, we just catnap. and i don't know what happens when i go to sleep. i don't remember what i dream about — very, very rare. sometimes i have little snatches, but i have people like gerry conlon, who's been in... gerry conlon refuses to stay in a hotel room with me. he says, "you're crazy

when you go to sleep". gerry conlon�*s another victim of miscarriage ofjustice. another victim, and as he says, in my sleep, i'm killing people. i'm slicing people. i'm kicking and screaming. i don't remember any of this, but what i do remember is when i waking up, when i come round and the blood is pumping through your veins and the tension and the adrenaline flow, and all i think about is walking into that police station in queen's road and austin and birmingham, just like one of them, like arnie and what have you, and one of them films with a big machine gun and going, here, "take this" and shooting every one of them. believe me, i sit there and i smile at it. and do you recognise that that is extraordinarily damaging to you? exactly, exactly. i mean, that is corrosive. you are trapped. i know i'm trapped, but one of the things that i can't get out of my head that triggers it all the time... what i can't forget is that i went into the police station.

i've never been arrested. i went into a police station of my own free will to be eliminated from their inquiries. i'd already been eliminated by special branch at 6:15 at heysham police station. they told the heysham police to let us go. t14 — the security forces in the north of ireland told them to let us go. they knew who we were and we weren't involved. my brothers were in the british army fighting the ira then. and this, of course, happened in november 197a. 1974. but you speak to me as though you can still feel the pain of that. you bet i can. you bet i can't forget it. you used a big word. you called it torture. we're talking about britain. we're talking about a country which has signed every single international convention against the use of torture. exactly. and still being used. you know, theyjust told... they told us right from the beginning what they were

going to do with us. and that's exactly what they did. they had a free hand. do you remember signing the confession? i didn't sign. the whole the point of their operation on you was to get you to sign a piece of paper. that's right. they told me to sign under the right hand corner of the, at the top of the page, under the caution and the bottom right hand corner. i never signed it. two of us didn't sign. me and gerry hunter. the otherfour did. they signed false confessions. and when you look at the confessions, a blind man can see that they're a load of rubbish. in one confession, there's a 12 or 1a bombs, and another one there's eight. injohnnie walker's, there's two brown paper bags or parcels. billy power's statement — the bombs were put outside the mulberry bush. but in actualfact, they were put inside. and what matters more to you? what damaged you more? because we've talked about the corrosive anger. what damaged you more?

was it all of that that went with the gross injustice that was done to you? or was it then living in a prison system, which you've described as evil, as a living hell, for 16.5 years afterward, which was, in the end, worse for you to live with? the cops. that's the hardest part. i can't speak on behalf of the other five, only in respect of the fact that the other five don't have any criminal convictions. i'd been in trouble with the police before. with the police since i came over to the country — since 1960. and violence was nothing new to me. you were a criminal. no, i wasn't. i was fighting and, you know, the usual petty things, you know, uh, what you call it. so i'd been in prison for stabbing people and slicing people. so i knew what prison life was about. but i accept it because... i mean, you weren't a nice guy. oh, no.

no. i tell people everywhere, like, i was not a good guy. i would have sliced you as quick as look at you. and i'd been in prison, so i was... i knew what prison life was about, but at least i was guilty of it. and it's acceptable. you heard this fallacy about everybody in jail claiming they're innocent. that's a load of rubbish. most people that are guilty will tell you they're guilty, and they could just bow their heads and get on with it. and for so—called professional criminals, going to prison is like paying tax. that's part of the job. and they accept it, but they don't cry and moan about it. but when you're innocent — whoa. and of course, when you're in prison and you tell them you're innocent, the only thing you're guaranteed is a hard time on the merry—go—round. and i had plenty of that moving from one prison to another. out of the 16.5 years that i was in prison, i probably spent at least eight of that in solitary confinement because i wouldn't conform to the prison system. prison conditions you...

..so subtly, you don't even know you're being conditioned. it's like a soldier. the only thing is, a soldier has a choice. he joins the army of his own free will. but when he joins the army on monday, they don't send him to iraq or afghanistan on the tuesday. they train him for what he's going to be involved in to the best of their ability. so he knows what he's getting in. with us, we were just suddenly plucked off and then thrown into the prison system, and we were the most hated prisoners in the prison system. prison officers were offering people hundreds of pounds to stab us, spitting in ourfood, urinating in it, you name it. we had it all — putting glass in it. when you went out in the exercise yard, were throwing outjam jars full of excreta, trying to smash them against your head when you walk by the prisoners. this is what we had to contend with 24—7 in the prison system.

but as i say, you become conditioned to live in prison, and it's like a soldier who's living in a battle and in a battle zone. hey, sooner or later he adopted his surroundings. he has to if he wants to survive. and we have to do the same. and prison... not only that, but prison kills your emotions. you die a little bit every day, and then one day you wake up. don't ask me what day, but one day you were waking up, and you know that you are changed forever. you know that nothing will ever, ever hurt you again. you named specifically named several police officers whom you say were specifically responsible for manufacturing evidence, for using you. would it have made a difference to you if those individuals had been pursued through the courts? 0h, definitely. definitely. that's, you know, that's

the one thing that we fought. and when we had five of them charged, two of them, the charges against two of them were dropped after, i think it was the third court appearance and the other three carried on. and after about the sixth or seventh appearance, they were appearing at the southwark crown court in london. and then after the sixth or seventh appearance, suddenly a magistrate from outside greater london sat that day, and he made a ruling that they wouldn't get a fair trial because of all the adverse publicity. adverse publicity? hey, before i even set foot in the court, you had the assistant chief constable, maurice bucke, on erld television telling everybody, "we caught the people who'd done it. "they're covered from head to toe with nitroglycerine". adverse publicity? so, please, how does it work for cops, it doesn't

work for us, the public? and remember one thing — we're all supposed to be equal under the eyes of the law. what applies to you applies to me. it applies to everybody right across the board. but in this country, no, there's two sets of laws, one for them and one for us, the public. but i come back to that word reconciliation. clearly these men abused the notion ofjustice and they abused you. but in the end, wouldn't it be in your interest, in paddy hill's interest, to get beyond that? maybe, maybe, even to find a way years after, to come to terms with it, even to forgive? well, quite a few of them are dead now, so you couldn't do nothing about them, you know?. how, given the strength of that, how do you relate to family? how do you relate to friends now, now, that you are, and have been for a long time, a free man?

uh, my own family, my kids, uh, when i, when i got out, you come and you see your kids, and they'rejust, like, talking to strangers. in fact, you'd rather be in the company of strangers because you don't expect nothing from strangers. you'd rather be... in the company of strangers than be in the company of my family. i realised that very shortly after i got out, and i felt nothing for them, and i had to tell my kids that, in fact, it came about through an argument and my daughterjust went into one and she started screaming at me and she was crying hysterically. and she said to me, "dad, you come up here and you spend a half an hour with us". says, "and then, you go and you drive for hours to a prison to spend time with people". said, "i don't have many memories of you before you went away. "and i've waited 16.5 years for you to come home," she said. "and you've been out just over a year". said, "and let me tell you something says, i'm never

going to get you back. "i don't know what's happened to you. "i don't know where you belong". but she said, "you don't belong to us". could you say anything back to her? ijust stood there and i burst into tears and i told her, "i don't feel nothing for you". and i still don't feel nothing for my kids. and i feel so bleep sorry. i feel so sorry for them because they never, ever going to have a relationship with me. never. but how can you know that? i mean, it is 20 years you've been wrestling with the deepest of feelings, but is there not a part of you that does believe you can reconnect? it's too far. it's gone too long.

if i had some help when i first came out, maybe. but now, i don't think so. what about the others in the birmingham six? one is now dead. richard died five years ago. is there anything you get from talking to them? because after all, they are the men who've been through the same experience you've been through. no, because i hardly ever speak to them. gerry hunter, i believe, is living somewhere in portugal. i haven't seen... i've seen gerry once in about ten years. and that was at richard's funeral in and ireland when he died five years ago, and johnnie walker haven't seen johnnie for about ten. i haven't seen him at the funeral as well. that was the first time.

i've seenjohnnie in about five years, and i haven't seen him since. uh, hugh and i haven't seen at all for about ten years. and is that because you don't want to? i'm too busy getting on with my own thing and trying to keep myself together. and i know that they're all having their own problems. i hope this doesn't sound trite, but you know what's in my mind? an image of of nelson mandela locked up for so long by the apartheid regime in south africa who'd suffered terrible things at the hands of the government. he came out and his message was one of reconciliation. truth and reconciliation. does that mean anything to you? uh, no. because the one thing you'll never get from the british establishment is the truth. the british establishment, as far as i'm concerned, is one of the most dirtiest, evillest, corrupted, perverted establishments in the world. and i say that without any fear of contradiction. but can you not in any way, after all this time, distance yourself a little bit

from the terrible things that happened to you and understand why things happened? i mean, for example, in 1974, understand that in britain there was a profound fear of ira bombs. the police were under enormous pressure. dozens and dozens of innocent people were being killed. and that's why, in the end, the police were desperate to nail somebody from the crime of the birmingham pub bombings. does that not make any difference to you putting it into some sort of a context? no. why should it? just because the police are under pressure, they can go and torture people and frame them and fit them up and send them to jail and ruin their lives, their families lives? does that give the people in ireland the right to go out and kill soldiers, which you condemn because they kill people in ireland? tit—for—tat. no way. it doesn't work that way. after all, you want to remember, we pay the police for to do a job and to do it properly. we expect them to be honest.

we don't expect them to then become the terrorists and the torturers. and if they do, then something should be done about it. i want to ask you something else which is connected, but a little bit different. it's about the political mood and whether you see any parallels between the 1970s, when you were a young man from northern ireland trying to make a living in england at a time when there was profound public fear of northern irish terrorism in mainland britain. whether you see any parallels with what we've seen westmoreland county community. of profound fear ofjihadi islamist terror and laws passed, anti—terror laws passed, policing operations undertaken, which some in the muslim community have claimed were discriminatory toward them. do you see parallels? oh, yeah.

with the irish? yeah, i've been saying it for years. i've been saying it for the last ten years. the same thing is going to happen to the muslim communities. that will happen to the irish. the only thing is, as i tell people when i'm speaking, "don't do to the muslim community what you did to the irish". they allowed the irish communities in england to be isolated. don't do it to the muslim community because that only breeds terrorism. before we end, i want to just quote to you something that you said as you walked out of that court 20 years ago, high on adrenaline. you were very angry, and you explained to the public how you'd been scapegoated and misused. but you also said, "now it's our turn". exactly. to tell the public the truth. and i've been doing it and telling it to the public since the day i got out of how rotten, evil and corrupt.

and i'll tell you what, you see when i get people come to me as just a member of the family has just been, as they claim, being fitted up, just been found guilty and they're innocent, right? and i tell the people, "listen, you see the government, you see all the so—called good people, but when you go to them, you're going to be very, very shocked and you're going to be sickened by the response you get "from the good people, because the people that "you think are there to help you will turn their back on you. "but there's a good side of it. "you're going to get help from the most unexpected "sources you ever thought of". and that's perfectly true. and let me tell you something. we didn't get out of court. we didn't get our convictions overturned because of the government or the courts. i'll tell you what we got our conviction overturned. public outcry. the one thing about the british public, when they see an injustice, they are not afraid to stand up and scream about it. and thank god. we were put into prison just to satisfy and to quell public outcry.

and in the end, it was the public outcry that got us back out again. paddy hill, thank you very much for being on hardtalk. it's been a pleasure, stephen. thank you for inviting me. thank you very much. my pleasure. thank you. hello there. once again, morning fog could be an issue for some, but the weather story is on the change as we head into the weekend. rain will arrive, and that is going to help lift some of that fog, but once the rain clears, it will also introduce something noticeably colder. the winds will be a feature, with widespread frost likely and an increasing risk of some of those showers turning wintry. more details on that injust a moment.

but for the here and now, we're still under this influence of high pressure. there is a weather front pushing into the northwest that's introduced more of a breeze, so fog free here and a little milder. but further south across england and wales, one or two spots, low single figures, some of that fog dense in places. that will lift, and that's where we'll likely see the best of the sunshine as we go through the day on friday. some drizzly rain into north wales and northwest england, more substantial rain starting to gradually push into the far north west of scotland. scotland and northern ireland see temperatures peaking at 13 celsius — further south, a little bit cooler, but that's where we've got the sunshine. now, that cold front will continue to push its way steadily southwards, introducing colder air behind. so underneath that blanket of cloud will keep double digits first thing on saturday morning. colder to the north of it, and still clear skies and colder to the south. but eventually that frontal system, although not that much in the way of substantial rain, will gradually drift its way south into wales, down into the midlands.

behind it, sunny spells and a few brisk showers being driven along by that brisk north westerly wind — eight or nine degrees here, 10—13 elsewhere. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday and monday, that's when we're likely to see the change. the colder air kicks in, and on top of that, we've got weather fronts trying to squeeze in from the atlantic, so that cold air will push all the way steadily south. the fronts could give us a few headaches in terms of how much rain, sleet and snow we're going to see. but one things for certain, we could have widespread frosts into next week under those clearer skies. but let's take a look at the forecast as we go through sunday and monday. sunday sees the rain clearing, somewhat colder conditions with the risk of some rain, sleet, and snow for some.

live from singapore, this is bbc news. —— washington. us president—elect donald trump chooses robert f kenneder — a noted vaccine sceptic — to lead the country's department of health. a un special committee says israel's warfare in gaza is "consistent with genocide". all primary schools are closed in delhi as the hazardous smog worsens lessons will be carried out online until further notice. and they thought it was a shipwreck but it turned out to be a remarkable scientific discovery deep in a remote part of the pacific.

i'm sumi somaskanda. thanks for joining us. donald trump is about to make a speech. he selected from a political driver robert f kennedy selected from a political driver robert f kenneder to leave the department of health and human services. he made the announcement on his truth social platform. doug collins is his pick for us

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