The second part of the song ( " Birmingham Six " ) , written and sung by MacGowan , is a demonstration of support to the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four and the view that they were the victims of a miscarriage of justice and that their confessions had been extracted by torture at the hands of the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad , claiming " there were six men in Birmingham , in Guildford there 's four , who were picked up and tortured and framed by the law , and the filth got promotion , but they 're still doing time , for being Irish in the wrong place and at the wrong time " . Although this was later admitted to be the case by the British courts , at the time the people involved were still convicted and imprisoned for carrying out the Birmingham pub bombings and the Guildford pub bombing during the 1970s
Birmingham pub bombings
Birmingham pub bombings
Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six