Bridgewater Four

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The Bridgewater Four was the collective name given to the quartet of men who were tried and found guilty of killing teenage paper boy Carl Bridgewater. After 18 years their convictions were overturned. The case has never been solved.

Carl Bridgewater, age 13, was shot dead at Yew Tree Farm, near Stourbridge, Staffordshire, on September 19, 1978, when he disturbed burglars while delivering a newspaper to the house. The elderly couple who lived there were not at home.

The Bridgewater Four were Patrick Molloy, Jim Robinson and cousins Michael Hickey and Vincent Hickey. All denied committing murder but three of them were convicted. The fourth, Molloy, was found guilty of manslaughter. Jim Robinson, 45, and Vincent Hickey, 25, were both sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 25 years, which would have kept them behind bars until at least 2004 and the ages of 70 and 50 respectively. Michael Hickey, 17, was sentenced to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, though it was anticipated he would serve a shorter sentence than the two others convicted of murder. Patrick Molloy, 51, received a 12-year prison sentence on the manslaughter charge, but died in 1981 before he could apply for release.

In 1997 the latest in a number of appeals finally saw the men's convictions overturned, after the Court of Appeal ruled that the trial had been unfair, due to evidence fabricated by police in order to persuade Molloy to make a confession. The campaign to free and absolve the four men was led by Michael Hickey's mother Ann Whelan and campaigning journalist Paul Foot. Preparations were made for a case against four police officers in the Staffordshire force on charges of fabricating evidence, but the case was dropped in December 1998.