Guildford Four man voices concerns ahead of conference
By John Bynorth
Home Affairs Editor

ONE of the Guildford Four, who spent 15 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the 1974 IRA pub bombings, has claimed the public are more sceptical than ever before about the innocence of miscarriage of justice victims.

Gerry Conlon's conviction for the attacks, which killed five people, was overturned along with those of his fellow defendants Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong and Carole Richardson by the Court of Appeal in London in 1989.

The case led to the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and preceded miscarriages such as the Birmingham Six, linked to the city's 1975 IRA bombings, the three men convicted of murdering the paper boy Carl Bridgewater and the Tottenham Three, who were found guilty, but were later acquitted on appeal, of murdering PC Keith Blakelock during the 1985 London riots.

Conlon, 54, has also called on the Scottish and UK governments to do more to publicly exonerate those convicted of such crimes so that no stain is left on their character.

The campaigner, who finally won a House of Commons apology from former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005, said: "These sensational cases hit every front page and news bulletin and the result is that people have become anaesthetised to serious miscarriages of justice.

"They presume there is no smoke without fire or there is a general apathy that comes from so many people being released. You could have some poor individual who has served 15 years for a horrendous crime he didn't commit. It's difficult for him to go back to his home town because of the stigm.

"It's a moral necessity that ministers stand up and say we apologise' and say this man or woman is innocent.' "When it's not done, the public have a tendency to think there is something we didn't know about the case which casts doubt on that person's innocence."

Conlon, who expects to suffer psychological trauma for the rest of his life from his false imprisonment, with his late father Guiseppe, who was also exonerated of involvement in the bombings, supports the Glasgow-based Miscarriages of Justice Organisation's (Mojo) campaign to secure Scottish government backing for a residential retreat for victims to receive psychological council.

He is due to speak at a two-day conference, attended by the former Beirut hostage Terry Waite, Helen -Bamber, the human rights campaigner who helped treat survivors of the Belsen concentration camp, Paddy Hill, and the leading psychiatrist Professor Gordon Turnbull, at Glasgow's City Chambers on April 21 and 22.

Conlon added: "I've suffered 35 years of trauma and Professor Turnbull said I was in the worst 1%. We need a retreat where the families and victims of miscarriages of justice can have the best quality of medical care to help them improve their lives."

Bob Woffinden, the author and journalist who has campaigned in a number of miscarriages of justice, including Sion Jenkins, who spent seven years in prison for murdering his foster daughter Billie-Jo before his second re-trial collapsed in 2006, said: "The problem today is that the public is, in a sense, overwhelmed because so many cases merit consideration. It's difficult for the public to get behind particular cases because we hear about them so regularly."

He added that Sally Clark, who was jailed for more than three years after being falsely accused of murdering her two sons, was a rare exception of someone who had received public sympathy.