Cruel Fate: One Man's Triumph over Injustice

by Hugh Callaghan

On 14 March 1991 the Birmingham Six were released from custody after a successful appeal at the Old Bailey in London. Hugh Callaghan and the other men had spent over sixteen years in prison as a result of an appalling miscarriage of justice.
Cruel Fate is Hugh Callaghan's own personal account of his life, the many strange twists of fate that saw him arrested and charged as an IRA bomber after the Birmingham pub massacres of November 1974 and his survival through the years spent in many different prisons. Born in the Ardoyne in Belfast in 1930, he emigrated to Birmingham after the war as a soccer-loving youth, settled and reared a family there. An ordinary man, with little interest in politics, he was stunned by his arrest, brutalised, and perplexed by the operation of the criminal justice system.
Hugh Callaghan's account of his life is a story of the triumph of the human spirit over impossible odds. The author emerges as a thoughtful, humane person, without bitterness but with the ability to see clearly the faults in the system that caused his long nightmare. His family, friends, the many supporters who struggled desperately for justice, the kindness - and inhumanity - of strangers all emerge vividly from this moving story.

221 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1993

Reviews

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply affecting account of unjust imprisonment and torture, told by a quiet, simple, honest man. In that sense I found it similar in tone to Eric Lomax's hugely moving 'The Railway Man' -- an ordinary, lovely man, caught up in huge events. Some great insight into the ease with which the public can be turned into a mob by an unprincipled press, and how the police and judiciary can close ranks to protect their own, even at the expense of innocent people and the victims of terrible crimes. The reminder of the thin veil of civilisation covering our barbarity is balanced here by the support and humanity that some people were able organise for Hugh and the rest of the Birmingham 6 in spite of the neanderthal lynch-mob mentality of much of the country at the time. Hugh's lack of bitterness and simple contentment in ordinary things such as football, playing with grandchildren, and enjoying a pint in the pub manage to leave the reader with some hope that the courage and decency he (and many of his supporters) displays will be what saves us all in the end.