Police Misconduct: Guildford Four & Mcguire Seven (EXTRA: DRUMS & PIPERS)

They were tried and convicted on 4 March 1976 and received the following sentences:

• Anne Maguire, aged 40, was sentenced to 14 years

• her husband Patrick Maguire, aged 42, was sentenced to 14 years

• their son Patrick Maguire, aged 14, was sentenced to four years

• their son Vincent, aged 17, was sentenced to five years

• William Smyth, brother to Anne Maguire, aged 37, received twelve years

• Patrick O'Neill, a family friend, aged 35, received twelve years

• Patrick "Giuseppe" Conlon, brother-in-law to Anne Maguire, aged 52, received twelve years. Conlon had travelled from Belfast to help his son Gerry Conlon in the Guildford Four trial.

Guiseppe Conlon, who had troubles with his lungs for many years, died in prison in January 1980, while the other six served their sentences and were released.

Appeals

Both the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven unsuccessfully appealed against their convictions immediately afterwards. Despite this, a growing body of disparate groups pressed for a re-examination of the case.

In February 1977, during the trial of the Balcombe Street gang, the four IRA men instructed their lawyers to "draw attention to the fact that four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences", referring to the Guildford Four. Despite claims to the police that they were responsible they were never charged with these offences and the Guildford Four remained imprisoned for another twelve years.

In 1986 Robert Kee published Trial & Error: the Maguires, the Guildford pub bombings and British justice.

Guildford Four tried to make an appeal under Section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (later repealed), but were unsuccessful and, in 1987 the Home Office issued a memorandum, recognizing that it was unlikely the Four were terrorists but that this would not be sufficient evidence for appeal.

Repeal of the Guildford verdict

In 1989, a detective looking at the case found typed notes from Patrick Armstrong's police interviews, which had been heavily edited. Deletions and additions had been made, and the notes had been rearranged. These notes, and their amendments, were consistent with hand-written and typed notes presented at the trial, which suggested that the hand-written notes were made after the interviews had been conducted. The implication of this was that the police had manipulated the notes, to fit with the case they wanted to present.

An appeal was granted on the basis of this new evidence. Lord Gifford QC represented Paul Hill and others were represented by noted human rights solicitor, Gareth Peirce. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, said that the police had either:

·      "completely fabricated the typed notes, amending them to make them look more effective, and then creating hand-written notes to give the appearance of contemporaneous notes"; or

·      "started off with contemporaneous notes, typed them up to make them more legible, amended them to make them read better, and then converted them back to hand-written notes."

Either way, the police had lied, and the conclusion was if they had lied about this, the entire evidence was misleading, and the Four were released in 1989, after having their convictions reversed.

Paul Hill had also been convicted of the murder of a British soldier, Brian Shaw, based on his confession while in the custody of Surrey Police, was released on bail, pending his appeal against this conviction. In 1994, the Court of Appeal in Belfast quashed Hill's conviction for Brian Shaw's murder.

Repeal of the Maguire verdicts

The verdicts against the Maguire Seven were repealed in 1991. The court held that members of the London Metropolitan Police beat some of the Seven into confessing to the crimes and withheld information that would have cleared them.

Aftermath

On February 9, 2005, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair issued an apology to the families of the eleven people imprisoned for the bombings in Guildford and Woolwich, and those related to them who were still alive, by saying, in part: 'I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice (…) they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated.’

Gerry Conlon wrote an autobiography called Proved Innocent. He is reported to have settled with the government for a final payment of compensation in the region of £400,000 to £500,000.

DRUMS & PIPERS (Press play)