Appalling Vista - Lord Denning

A controversial judgment was that in the appeal of the Birmingham Six in 1979. Denning's view was that:

If the six men win, it will mean that the police are guilty of perjury, that they are guilty of violence and threats, that the confessions were invented and improperly admitted in evidence and the convictions were erroneous... This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say that it cannot be right that these actions should go any further. [2]

He also commented that "We shouldn't have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they'd been hanged. They'd have been forgotten and the whole community would have been satisfied."

The men's convictions were overturned in 1991, after it was shown that the police had indeed done all the things Denning described, and he admitted that the West Midlands Police force had "let us all down”