It is 25 years since the Birmingham Six were released from prison

A quarter of a century after their release, the Birmingham Six still live with the impact of their jailing, writes Michael Clifford

It was twenty five years ago today that they walked out, blinking, into freedom. They had spent sixteen and a half years incarcerated for something they didn’t do. Some of them had endured hard, hard years in British prisons, extended periods in solidary, long years despised by some elements as murderers of twenty one innocent people.

A crowd was waiting for them outside the Old Bailey, the symbol of British justice, which had for centuries evoked pride in a people who value their own sense of fair play.