In the name of his father, he walked free
Gerald Conlon, one of the Guildford Four: b March 1, 1954; d June 21, 2014, aged 60.
IN A piece of theatre rarely matched in the long history of the Old Bailey, Gerry Conlon walked to freedom shortly after 3 o’clock on October 19, 1989. Flanked by his sisters, Bridie and Ann, and greeted by the sort of roar more usually heard at football grounds, Conlon declared: ‘‘I’ve been in prison for 15 years for something I didn’t do. I watched my father die in prison for something he didn’t do. I’m totally innocent.’’
It was a bravura performance, all the more extraordinary for the fact that the other members of the Guildford Four acquitted that day chose to slip away out of sight of the cheering crowds and waiting journalists. Conlon, however, was determined to keep a promise he had made to his father just before he died – to walk out of court by the front door with his head held high.
It was one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in English legal history, but his release was not the start of a brighter life for Conlon.
The effects of his wrongful imprisonment and the torture used by police to extract his confession left deep emotional and psychological scars that never healed.
Although he received a letter of apology from prime minister Tony Blair in 2005 and campaigned for victims of injustice, Conlon admitted to breakdowns, suicide attempts and addictions to drink and drugs in the years that followed his release.
‘‘It’s better sometimes not to go to sleep, because the memories are waiting for me,’’ he said.
His story was told by Hollywood in 1993, with Daniel Day-Lewis playing him in In the Name of the Father, which was nominated for an Oscar and for which Conlon earned NZ$330,000.
Five people, four of them off-duty soldiers, were killed when bombs exploded in two pubs in Guildford, Surrey, in October 1974.
Conlon was living in London at the time, having come over from Belfast in search of work, and fallen in with an old school friend, Paul Hill. The pair were living on the margins, existing on the proceeds of petty crime and, late in 1974, Conlon decided to move back home.
His nightmare began early on the morning of November 30 when his mother Sarah answered the door to two soldiers and a policeman. He was arrested and taken to England, where he was shown a confession by Hill that named him as an accomplice in the Guildford bombings.
In his book, Proved Innocent ( 1990), Conlon wrote that he was stripped, kept naked in freezing conditions, deprived of food, water and sleep, spat on, kicked and punched. He also suffered horribly painful attacks on his ears and private parts.
Nonetheless, he only agreed to provide the confession the police were seeking after an officer threatened the lives of his mother and one of his sisters.When the Guildford Four were brought to trial in 1975, the prosecution based its entire case on the confessions of Conlon and his fellow defendants.
In an era when police evidence was rarely questioned, all four defendants were found guilty of all the charges relating to the two Guildford bombings.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Donaldson, duly passed the mandatory sentences of life imprisonment, expressing regret that the defendants had not been charged with treason and he could not impose the death penalty.
For the rest of her life, Sarah Conlon kept a framed cutting of the judge’s remarks.
Conlon’s father, Giuseppe, was arrested after travelling to England to meet his son’s solicitors. In March 1976 he and the other members of a group who became known as the Maguire Seven were found guilty of possessing explosives and given sentences ranging from four to 14 years.
The following year, during the trial of the Balcombe Street gang, the defendants fell short of confessing their responsibility for the Guildford and Woolwich bombings but instructed their lawyers to draw attention to the fact that ‘‘four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences’’ for those attacks.
Giuseppe Conlon, who had long suffered with tuberculosis, died in prison in January 1980 still protesting his innocence. The last time he saw his son he predicted that his death would be the catalyst for their release and so – eventually – it proved.
Over the next few years the case was taken up by MPs, aristocrats and former judges. Conlon recalled the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales appearing ‘‘like Batman’’ in his cape when he visited him in prison.
Incontrovertible grounds for an appeal came to light in 1988, when a police review found that the evidence of a witness who gave Conlon an alibi for the night of the bombings was suppressed.
The way was clear for the emergency session of the Court of Appeal at which Conlon, Richardson, Armstrong and Hill were cleared.
Conlon grew up in the Catholic area of West Belfast. After leaving school at 15, he worked as a gate-boy at a textile mill and delivered goods for a hairdressing supplier. He was, in his own words, ‘‘a bit of a hooligan’’ but did not get into serious trouble.
At school he won a prize for his handwriting, was a talented artist and excelled at football. His only flirtation with terrorism was to join the youth wing of the IRA, but he was thrown out for being too unruly.
After the film appeared, Conlon became something of a celebrity, but later admitted that the money he received for the film rights disappeared in six weeks, mostly on drugs at parties in London and Hollywood. Much of the money he received in compensation went the same way.
Looking back on his life, he once said: ‘‘I have no memories of my childhood now. But everything that happened from Saturday 30 November 1974 is absolutely vivid.’’