By james art 
Yet in 1991 their convictions were overturned and the men were released from prison, largely thanks to Chris Mullin, an investigative journalist who was also a Labor MP at the time. It was suggested to Mullin during the original trial that there might be something wrong with the verdicts, and some time later he began digging.
“I realized from the beginning that poking holes in police evidence alone was not enough,” he says today. “I would have to track down the real bombers and they would be alive and well in Ireland…”
It took several years to prove the men’s innocence, but few could have imagined that decades later there would still be so many questions to be answered, or that now, a full 50 years after the bombings, no one is on trial for what many believe is the biggest unsolved mass murder in modern British history.
Calls for a public inquiry into the pub bombings continue today – and it could be edging closer to becoming a reality.
Andy Street, a former mayor of the West Midlands who worked closely with the families of the victims of the attacks and contacted the Home Office, told the BBC in September: “I believe the government may decide to satisfy the public inquiry. I have good evidence to believe that this is the situation they are in, so there is a solution that can be made.
The Street believed they were close to a solution before the change of government in July. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper declined to comment, but the Home Office told the BBC that “on October 22, Security Secretary Dan Jarvis confirmed to Parliament that he and the Home Secretary would consider requests for a public inquiry as soon as possible”.
If the public inquiry opens, it could provide answers to what really happened that night – and why no one has been brought to justice.