Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

448 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
The fight for the release of the Guildford Four began soon after their conviction
in 1975. Their eventual release was due to the combined effort of many
individuals. However, the four defendants would probably still be in prison had
it not been for Alastair Logan, who from the beginning believed in their innocence
and worked almost continuously on the case unpaid for over a decade. He
was originally Paddy Armstrong’s solicitor and for a while represented all four
defendants. Later Hill and Conlon were to be represented by other solicitors.
The two have told their own stories (Conlon, 1990; Hill & Bennett, 1990).
Following the so-called ‘Balcombe Street Siege’ in December 1975, where
four IRA terrorists were arrested, two of them admitted to the police that they
had carried out the Woolwich bombings and stated that Hill and Armstrong
had nothing to do with it. The Director of Public Prosecutions was soon informed
about this revelation but the solicitors of Hill and Armstrong were not informed
and no official action was taken (McKee & Franey, 1988). The four defendants
of the Balcombe Street Active Service Unit were tried at the Central Criminal
Court in January 1977, but refused to plead on the basis that they had not been
charged with the Guildford and Woolwich bombings, for which they claimed
responsibility in addition to the other charges.
Before their conviction, Alastair Logan interviewed the four Balcombe Street
defendants and another convicted terrorist and obtained testimony from four
of them stating that they had carried out the Woolwich bombing. Two of them
admitted to both the Guildford and Woolwich bombings. Furthermore, they
stated that, to their knowledge, the four young people convicted of the bombings
were totally innocent. This new evidence was presented at the appeal hearing
of the Guildford Four in October 1977. The appeal failed and the convictions
were upheld.
In 1987 a delegation lead by Cardinal Hume was pressing the Home Secretary
to look at the case again, with particular reference to some new evidence
concerning Carole Richardson’s mental state at the time of her confession in
1974 (Victory, 2002). The delegation was supported by two former Home Secretaries
and two distinguished law lords. On 16 January 1989, the Home Secretary
announced in the House of Commons that the case of the Guildford Four
was to be referred back to the Court of Appeal. The reasons given were related to
new alibi evidence for two of the Guildford Four and questions over the mental
state of Carole Richardson at the time of her interrogation in December 1974
(Ford & Tendler, 1989). A date for the Court of Appeal hearing was subsequently
set for January 1990. That date was brought forward to 9 October 1989.
The Avon and Somerset Police, who were appointed by the Home Secretary
in 1987 to look at the confessions of the Guildford Four, discovered from the
archives at the Surrey Police Headquarters that crucial evidence concerning
the confessions of Hill and Armstrong had been fabricated. The Director of
Public Prosecutions responded by requesting that the convictions of the four be
quashed by the Court of Appeal. Lord Chief Justice Lane and his two co-judges
(Justices Glidewell & Farquharson) had no alternative but to concede that the
police officers ‘had lied’ at the trial of the Guildford Four. The convictions of the
Four were accordingly quashed.