The issue of miscarriages of justice1 has been at the heart of much recent discourse—legal, political and social—concerning the English criminal justice system. Indeed the crisis of confidence in the system has prompted attempts to re-establish legitimacy, which include such tried and tested methods as changes of personnel,2 and the appointment of a wide-ranging Royal Commission 3 which followed the attempt to quell the disquiet by the more focused May Inquiry.4 Much of the concern has arisen from the conduct of terrorist trials in Britain in the mid-1970s, the most important and significant 5 of which for the purposes of this paper were the trials of groups of terrorist suspects commonly known as the Birmingham 6,6