As a journalist in the 1980s, Chris Mullin led a campaign that resulted in the release of the Birmingham Six, victims of a miscarriage of justice.

In March 2022, a court case settled that Mullin would not need to release any notes relating to who may have planted the two bombs.

Mullin is the author of four novels, including A Very British Coup (1982), which was later adapted for television, and its sequel The Friends of Harry Perkins.

Mullin was educated at St Joseph's College, a Roman Catholic boarding independent school for boys (now co-educational) in the town of Ipswich in Suffolk, followed by the University of Hull,[2] where he studied Law.

He has been highly critical of the American strategy in Vietnam and has stated that he believes that the war, intended to stop the advance of Communism, instead only delayed the coming of market forces in the country.

Mullin, working for the Granada current affairs programme World in Action, was pivotal in securing the release of the Birmingham Six, a long-standing miscarriage of justice.

In 1986, Mullin's book, Error of Judgment: The Truth About the Birmingham Pub Bombings, set out a detailed case supporting the men's claims that they were innocent.

Written by Rob Ritchie and directed by Mike Beckham, it featured John Hurt as Mullin, with Martin Shaw as World in Action producer Ian McBride, Ciaran Hinds as Richard McIlkenny, one of the Six, and Patrick Malahide as Michael Mansfield (QC).

[9][10] Granada's BAFTA-nominated follow-up documentary after the release of the six men, World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story, was telecast on 18 March 1991.

[11] In 2019, Mullin was criticised by the relatives of some of the victims of the attack for not naming IRA bombing suspects who he met whilst investigating the case in the 1980s.

He was quoted in The Guardian as having said: "In order to track down the bombers, I had to give assurances not only to guilty but to innocent intermediaries that I would not, during their lifetime, disclose the names of those who cooperated.

He wrote it having discussed the idea of a left-wing Prime Minister being undermined by the Establishment following the 1981 Labour Party Conference with Peter Hain, Stuart Holland and Tony Banks.

Subsequently, Mullin was told by the former BBC correspondent Peter Hardiman Scott that he had been writing a book on this topic at the time.

Starring Ray McAnally, the series was first screened on Channel 4 and won Bafta and Emmy awards, and was syndicated to more than 30 countries.

Before the Labour victory of 1997, Mullin had attained a reputation for campaigning on behalf of victims of injustice and opposition to the curtailing of civil rights.

His vote against the government's proposal for 90 days' detention without trial for persons suspected of terrorism, as one of 49 Labour rebels,[21] seemed to indicate a re-emergence of his civil libertarian instincts.

[23] During the UK Parliamentary expenses scandal, Mullin, one of the lowest claimers,[24] provided some comic relief when it was revealed that the television at his second home is a very old black-and-white model with a £45 TV licence.

[28] Peter Riddell of the Times suggested that A View From the Foothills deserved to become "the central text for understanding the Blair years",[29] while Decline & Fall, in which Mullin (by then a backbencher again) expressed wry consternation at the way the government operated under Blair's successor Gordon Brown, were commended for their independence of outlook, revealing, as Jenni Russell put it in the Sunday Times, Mullin's "readiness to like people who don't echo his politics".

Diaries 2010–2022, chronicling the post-parliamentary period of his life, from the fallout of the 2010 general election to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, was released in May 2023.

[33] Mullin and his wife, Nguyen Thi Ngoc, who he met while in Vietnam,[34] married in April 1987,[35] in Ho Chi Minh City,[36] had two daughters, and live in Northumberland.