Most Unnatural

As the co-author of this book, I am happy to fill in some of these details. I was a young journalist and Peter Hughman a young solicitor when we first met Dennis's father. He persuaded me of his son's innocence and Peter and I spent the next year researching and writing the book for Penguin.
We visited all the location in the North East, interviewed their solicitor and the key witnesses among the miners. During our stay in Newcastle we were followed by the police and, we believe, our phone was bugged.
When the book was being edited considerable pressure was put on us and the publishers by the authorities. We were refused permission to use any police photographs in the book - although these were the key to fully understanding the case - and some sections of the text had to be removed on legal advice.
The book created quite an impact and found support among many sections of society from Betrand Russell to John Junor a right wing writer on the Sunday Express. The case was sent to appeal by the then Home Secretary Reginald Maudling but was dismissed by Lord Chief Justice Widgery. Confronted with the evidence of dozens of miners who had passed the car when going on or off shift at the mine and all of whom claimed it was undamaged and that there was no body in the back, he simply said that it was curious but obviously wrong since it contradicted the police case. Our book explores the trial in detail and identifies the key contradictions in the evidence that should have led to their appeal succeeding. Our clear impression was that the Newcastle police were determined to 'get' Dennis, who had made fools of them some years earlier, when he committed a long firm fraud while on the run from Dartmoor, and that Michael was, as we would say today, 'collateral damage.' Our book details precisely why Dennis was made a target by the police when he returned to the city after his release. As a result of our experiences we wrote a second book together entitled Just How Just? an analysis of the English legal system.