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In 1985 Paul May, who has died aged 74 of a pulmonary embolism, became the chair of the Birmingham Six campaign. Six years later, the convictions of Billy Power, Paddy Hill, Johnnie Walker, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter and Hughie Callaghan for the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974 were quashed by the court of appeal, but only after they had spent 17 years in prison.
As the campaign got under way from a small backroom in the Camden Irish Centre, north London, the journalist (and later Labour MP) Chris Mullin presented new evidence in World in Action TV programmes and a book. Alongside his work as a housing officer for Islington council, Paul expanded the campaign until it had a huge network of supporters in Britain and abroad. By the time the Six’s new appeal opened, he had done much to sway public opinion concerning one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history, and he organised or was involved with such cases for the rest of his life.
Paul was completely on top of the underlying evidence. He produced pamphlets that summarised and let the evidence speak for itself, so that people could draw their own conclusions. Travelling around the country, he spoke at often small public meetings to spread the word.
As the Birmingham Six campaign grew, he spoke to and briefed many politicians and journalists, as well as recruiting a growing number of well-known actors, comedians and musicians to the cause. He organised increasingly large fundraising events, culminating in a concert at the Wembley Conference Centre in 1990, with acts including the folk singers Christy Moore and Peggy Seeger.
At the heart of the initiative lay Paul’s friendships with the Six, when they had no hope and felt that they would be buried in prison for the rest of their lives. Paul visited them and also visited their families. As a friend and advocate he made sure they had, and felt they had, a voice.
In speaking out about what happened to the Birmingham Six, Paul gave confidence more widely to Irish people living in Britain. In the 1950s and 60s boarding houses and pubs had carried signs saying “No Blacks. No dogs. No Irish”. This anti-Irish racism was compounded by general anti-Irish sentiment linked to the IRA bombing campaign that extended to England from the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Birmingham Six campaign gave the wider Irish community a sense of vindication, pride and energy.
Paul also collaborated closely with other miscarriage of justice campaigns: for the Guildford Four, wrongly convicted of the Guildford pub bombings in 1974; for the Maguire Seven, wrongly convicted of being in possession of the explosives in connection with the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings in 1974; the Tottenham Three, wrongly convicted of the killing of PC Keith Blakelock on the Broadwater Farm estate, north London, in 1985; the Bridgewater Four, wrongly convicted of the murder of the newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater in Stourbridge, West Midlands, in 1978; and Judy Ward, wrongly convicted of the M62 bombing in 1974.
After the Birmingham Six’s convictions were quashed, Paul did not sit back, but threw himself into Ward’s and the Bridgewater Four’s campaigns, taking an essential part in building support and raising public consciousness. Then came the East Ham Two campaign, for two young Tamil men who were wrongly convicted in 1988 for the murder of three Tamils in a firebombing attack. Working with the solicitor Gareth Peirce and the then Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, Paul was instrumental in getting the case reopened by the home secretary in 1992, with one of the young men, Sam Kulasingham, in the last stages of a hunger strike to protest his innocence, and the convictions were quashed in 1994.
Paul also campaigned for Danny McNamee, wrongly convicted of the Hyde Park bombing in 1982; Eddie Gilfoyle, convicted of murdering his wife in 1992, released on licence in 2010 and still protesting his innocence; and Sam Hallam, wrongly convicted of murder following a street brawl in Islington in 2004.
For the 15 years until his death, Paul had been leading the campaign for Colin Norris, a nurse convicted in 2008 of murdering four of his patients and attempting to murder a fifth by injecting them with insulin. He continues to protest his innocence, though in 2025, having changed his name to Colin Campbell, he lost his appeal.
At the same time, Paul spent many years campaigning and working with politicians on wider social and political issues, including ensuring that prisoners were involved in and therefore bought into the Good Friday agreement, and working to extradite Augusto Pinochet to Spain in 1998. The House of Lords ratified the move, but in 2000 Jack Straw, then the home secretary, allowed him to return to Chile on health grounds. Paul fought for changes to disability legislation insofar as it affects prisoners, and pension contributions for prisoners who are released from prison after serving long sentences.
At the same time, he rose to become assistant director of housing for Islington, retiring in 2000 and subsequently working for Scope, the disability charity. Paul was driven by his leftwing politics, which came out of a hard upbringing in the tenement blocks of Manchester in the 1950s and 60s.
Born in Stepney, in the East End of London, Paul grew up in Manchester. He was the son of John May, a painter and decorator, and Mary Treacey, who ran an off-licence after the family’s move north.
After leaving Xaverian college at the age of 16, Paul started working in a fruit market. By the following year, he was working for Manchester Corporation. In the early 70s, he moved to London and joined the Islington housing department. I first met him in 1987, when working before qualification for one of the firms of solicitors representing the Six, and after becoming a barrister remained in touch with him on all sorts of issues and cases.
In 2000 Paul met Jane Mair when they were doing a part-time law degree at Birkbeck, University of London. They each graduated with first-class honours.
They married in 2004. Jane survives him, along with two of his sisters.
