Mr. Hill and three others were tried and convicted of the pub bombing, which killed five people.

They were released in 1989 after serving 15 years of life sentences when a defense attorney was able to establish inconsistencies indicating that confession to the pub bombing had been fabricated by the police.

Mr Justice garland said he'd had the advantage of seeing the material gathered during this further enquiry into the pub bombings.

The apparent chronology was that there were pub bombings by the IRA in Birmingham on 21 November 1974.

Paul Mifsud, a work colleague of Copeland, recognised him from the footage and alerted the police about an hour and 20 minutes before the pub bombing.

March 14 1991: On this day the Birmingham six, jailed for 17 years for a pub bombing, were freed by the Court of Appeal.

He ridiculed the claims of police abuse levied by the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6, two groups charged with fatal pub bombings in 1974 but later exonerated.

Referring to its activity in the early and mid-1970s, journalist Ed Moloney described no-warning pub bombings as the UVF's "forte".

The announcement halted the judicial inquiry under Sir John May which had been set up in March to investigate all the convictions connected with the pub bombings.

Government officials have defended these travel limitations as justified, citing the at times incendiary level of tensions punctuated by pub bombings in England.