The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly from Northern Ireland, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 of the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974 and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually overturned in 1989 (for the Guildford Four) and 1991 (for the Maguire Seven) after long campaigns for justice, as were those of the Birmingham Six.
Background On 22 October 1975, at the Old Bailey in London, the Guildford Four were convicted of bombings carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Subsequently, the Maguire Seven were convicted of handling explosives found during the investigation into the bombings. Both groups' convictions were eventually declared "unsafe and unsatisfactory" and reversed in 1989 and 1991, respectively, after they had served 15 to 16 years in prison.
Along with the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, several other people faced charges relating to the bombings, six of whom were charged with murder, but these charges were dropped.
In the wake of the scandal, in October 1989 the UK Government appointed Appeal Court Justice Sir John May to undertake a judicial inquiry into the suspect convictions of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. The inquiry's findings criticised the trial judge, Lord Donaldson of Lymington. It unearthed improprieties in the handling of scientific evidence that were relevant to the other cases and declared the convictions unsound and recommended referral back to the Court of Appeal, but no action was taken.
No one else has been charged with the Guildford and Woolwich bombings, or with supplying the material. Three police officers were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the wake of the inquiry, but found not guilty in 1993.
Over 700 documents, including secret testimony, were collected by the inquiry and were due to be unsealed for public access in The National Archives on 1 January 2020, but on 31 December 2019 the Home Office removed all the documents from the National Archive and took them back into government control. The files remain sealed for now.
Guildford Four The Guildford Four were charged with direct involvement with the IRA attacks. They were: Defendant Age attime of trial Convicted of Paul Michael Hill 21 Guildford pub bombings Woolwich pub bombing (separately) the murder of British soldier Brian Shaw, confessed to during the same questioningGerard Patrick "Gerry" Conlon 21 Guildford pub bombingsPatrick Joseph "Paddy" Armstrong 25 Guildford pub bombings Woolwich bombingCarole Richardson 17 Guildford pub bombings
After their arrest, all four defendants confessed to the bombing under intense police interrogation. These confessions were later retracted but remained the basis of the case against them. They were later alleged to be the result of coercion by the police, ranging from intimidation to torture—including threats against family members—as well as the effects of drug withdrawal. Conlon wrote in his autobiography that a key factor in his coerced confession was that anti-terrorism laws passed in the early 1970s allowed the police to hold suspects without charges for up to a week, and that he might have been able to withstand the treatment he had received had a shorter time limit been in effect.
The four were convicted on 22 October 1975 of murder and other crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment—mandatory for adults convicted of murder. Richardson, a minor at the time of the bombings, received an indeterminate "at Her Majesty's pleasure" sentence for murder and a life sentence for conspiracy. Justice Lord Donaldson of Lymington, who also presided over the Maguire Seven trial, expressed regret that the Four had not been charged with high treason, which still had a mandatory death penalty. Although no hangings had been carried out in the UK since 1964, treason still carried the death penalty until 1998. The usual practice was for judges to be consulted by the Home Secretary when considering release from a life sentence, rather than giving a tariff at trial, but the judge, believing he might be dead by the time they were released, recommended 30 years for Conlon, 35 for Armstrong, and until "great age" for Hill.
The Guildford Four did not "fit the bill" of IRA involvement according to the way they lived. Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson, an Englishwoman, lived in a squat and were involved with drugs and petty crime. Conlon asserted at several points in his autobiography that the IRA would not have taken him due to his record for shoplifting and other petty crimes, and that he had been expelled from Fianna Éireann, an Irish republican youth organisation with strong ties to the Provisional IRA.
Maguire Seven
The Maguire Seven were charged with possessing nitroglycerine allegedly passed to the IRA to make bombs after the police raided the West Kilburn house of Anne Maguire (Conlon's aunt) on 3 December 1974.
They were tried and convicted on 4 March 1976 and received the following sentences: Defendant Relationship Age attime of trial SentenceAnne Maguire40 14 yearsPatrick Maguire Sr. Anne's husband42 14 years Patrick Maguire Jr. Son of Anne and Patrick 14 4 years Vincent Maguire Son of Anne and Patrick 17 5 years Sean Smyth Brother of Anne Maguire 37 12 years Patrick O'Neill Family friend 35 12 years Patrick "Giuseppe" Conlon Brother-in-law of Anne 52 12 years; died in prison in 1980
Giuseppe Conlon had travelled from Belfast to help his son, Gerry Conlon, in the Guildford Four trial. Giuseppe, 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 The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven sought leave to appeal their convictions immediately and were refused, but a growing body of disparate groups pressed for reexamination 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. Despite telling the police they were responsible, they were never charged with these offences and the Guildford Four remained in prison for another 12 years.
The Guildford Four tried to obtain from the Home Secretary a reference to the Court of Appeal under Section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (later repealed), but were unsuccessful. In 1987, the Home Office issued a memorandum recognising that it was unlikely they were terrorists, but that this would not be sufficient evidence for appeal.
Campaigns After the 1977 court appeal failed, a number of 'lone voices' publicly questioned the conviction; among them were David Martin in The Leveller, Gavin Esler and Chris Mullin in the New Statesman, and David McKittrick in the Belfast Telegraph. On 26 February 1980, BBC One Northern Ireland aired Spotlight: Giuseppe Conlon and the Bomb Factory, which contained an interview by Patrick Maguire and the BBC's Gavin Esler.
Quashing of the Guildford Four verdict
In 1989, detectives from Avon and Somerset Constabulary, investigating the handling of the case, found significant pieces of evidence in relation to Surrey Police's handling of the Guildford Four and their statements. Typed notes from Patrick Armstrong's police interviews had been extensively edited. Deletions and additions had been made and the notes had been rearranged. The notes and their amendments were consistent with handwritten and typed notes presented at the trial, which suggested that the handwritten notes were made after the interviews had been conducted. The notes presented had been described in court as contemporaneous records. Manuscript notes relating to an interview with Hill showed that Hill's fifth statement was taken in breach of Judges' Rules and may well have been inadmissible as evidence. The information was not made available to the DPP or the prosecution and the officers involved had denied under oath that such an interview had happened. Detention records were inconsistent with the times and durations of the claimed interviews, as reported by the Surrey police.
An appeal was already under way on the basis of other evidence. Lord Gifford represented Paul Hill, and others were represented by human rights solicitor Gareth Peirce. The appeal hearing had been adjourned to January 1990 at the request of the Guildford Four but once the findings of the Somerset and Avon report were available, the hearing was resumed, with the Crown saying it did not wish to support the convictions. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, concluded that, regardless of the impact of the content of the material Avon and Somerset discovered or the alibis or additional evidence the appellants wished to introduce, the level of duplicity meant that all the police evidence was suspect, and the case for the prosecution was unsafe.
Lane remarked:
The Four were released on 19 October 1989, after having their convictions quashed. 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. This did not fall under the ambit of the Lane appeal, but he was released on bail pending his appeal against this conviction. In 1994, Her Majesty's Court of Appeal in Belfast quashed Hill's conviction for Shaw's murder.
Quashing of the Maguire verdicts On 12 July 1990, the Home Secretary, David Waddington, published 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, which criticised the trial judge, Donaldson, unearthed improprieties in the handling of scientific evidence, declared the convictions unsound, and recommended referral back to the Court of Appeal. The report "strongly criticise[d] the decision by the prosecution at the Guildford Four's trial not to disclose to the defence a statement supporting Mr Conlon's alibi." The Maguire Seven's convictions were quashed in 1991.
Aftermath
Guildford Four and Maguire Seven Neither the bombings nor the wrongful imprisonment resulted in convictions. The bombings were most likely the work of the Balcombe Street ASU, which claimed responsibility. They were already serving life sentences, but were released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Three British police officers—Thomas Style, John Donaldson and Vernon Attwell—were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, but each was found not guilty.
On 9 February 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair apologised to the families of the 11 people imprisoned for the bombings in Guildford and Woolwich and those related to those who were still alive. He said, in part, "I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice... they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."
The Roman Catholic Church awarded Anne Maguire a Benemerenti medal for her 'remarkable ability to forgive' and her community work. In 1993, Hill married Courtney Kennedy, a daughter of assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a niece of assassinated president John F. Kennedy. They had a daughter, Saoirse, in 1997. Paul had a daughter, Cara, from a previous relationship with Gina Tohill. Hill and Courtney Kennedy legally separated in 2006. Their daughter, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, died in 2019 at age 22, due to an accidental overdose.
Hill had a televised meeting with the brother of murdered soldier Brian Shaw, who continued to accuse him. He travelled to Colombia to attend the trial of the Colombia Three.