Guildford Four and Maguire Seven

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The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were two sets of people wrongfully convicted of bombings carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1970s. Both groups' convictions were declared unsafe and reversed in the 1990s.[1]

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[edit] Maguire Seven

The Maguire Seven were charged with possessing nitro-glycerine allegedly passed to the IRA to make bombs after the police had raided the Willesden house of Anne Maguire on 3 December 1974.

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.

[edit] Guildford Four

The Guildford Four were Paul Hill, Gerry Conlon, Patrick 'Paddy' Armstrong and Carole Richardson, who were arrested in 1974 and charged with the Guildford pub bombings. Hill and Armstrong were also charged with the Kings Arms, Woolwich bombing. After their arrest, they confessed to the bombing but at the trial they claimed they had been tortured by police until they had agreed to sign the confessions.

They were convicted in October 1975 for murder and received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Justice Donaldson, who also presided over the Maguire Seven trial, expressed regret that the Four had not been charged with treason, which then still had a mandatory death penalty.

There was never any evidence that any of "The Four" had been involved with the Provisional IRA. Furthermore, they did not 'fit the bill' in terms of lifestyle. Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson, an Englishwoman, lived in a squat, and were involved with drugs and petty crime. Paul Michael Hill was born and raised in Belfast in a mixed-religion marriage.

[edit] 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 ASU, 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.[2] Despite claims to the police that they were responsible [2] 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.

The 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.

[edit] 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.


On 12 July 1990, the Home Secretary David Waddington published the Interim Report on the Maguire Case: The Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the convictions arising out of the bomb attacks in Guildford and Woolwich in 1974[3], which criticised the trial judge Justice Donaldson and unearthed improprieties in the handling of scientific evidence and declared the convictions unsound recommending referral back to the Court of Appeal.

[edit] 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.[4]

[edit] Aftermath

Neither the bombings nor the wrongful imprisonment resulted in convictions. Three British police officers were charged, but they were each found not guilty.[5]

On 9 February 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.”[6]

Paul Hill married Courtney Kennedy of the American Kennedy political family.

Gerry Conlon's autobiography Proved Innocent was adapted into the Oscar- and BAFTA Award–nominated 1993 film In The Name of the Father, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Emma Thompson and Pete Postlethwaite. He is reported to have settled with the government for a final payment of compensation in the region of £400,000 to £500,000.[7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Beverley Schurr. Expert Witnesses And The Duties Of Disclosure & Impartiality: The Lessons Of The IRA Cases In England.. Retrieved on 2007-08-05.
  2. ^ a b Joe O'Connell's speech from the dock
  3. ^ Hansard Debates 12 July 1990
  4. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20020620/ai_n12627606
  5. ^ http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/usf/greenfield30.htm
  6. ^ Blair apologises to Guildford Four family. Guardian Unlimited (2005-02-09). Retrieved on 2008-01-29.
  7. ^ http://innocent.org.uk/cases/guildford4/

[edit] See also

[edit] External links