This article, discussing concerns about the quality of criminal justice in high-profile cases, was published in the London Review of Books in 1987, when I was practising at the Bar. At the time when this piece was written, the only way to reopen a conviction after an unsuccessful appeal was on a reference of the case back to the Court of Appeal by the Home Secretary. In 1997 the Criminal Cases Review Commission finally came into being, with an independent power to reopen cases and refer them back.

I had represented one of the Birmingham Six, Gerard Hunter, in civil proceedings against the police for assault. In the light of the eventual acquittals, the striking out of the civil claims in order not to cast doubt on the convictions was not one of the law's finest moments.

In the London Review of Books some months earlier I had reviewed Paul Foot's book on the Carl Bridgewater murder case, in which, after an investigation and trial redolent of police malpractice, four men had been given life sentences for the murder of a thirteen-year-old newspaper delivery boy who had stumbled on a burglary in an isolated farmhouse. In 1988, on the Home Secretary's reference back of the case to the Court of Appeal, I was briefed for the youngest of the accused, Michael Hickey. In spite of a compelling case assembled by their solicitor, James Nichol, the convictions were upheld. […]