From the survivors and families of the Hillsborough Disaster through to those who made it through the ‘Battle of Orgreave’, there have been countless incidents over the years of police cover-ups and corruption. One such incident also occurred in the 1970s and involved something that took place in Guildford, namely the bombings of two pubs in the town. The bombings saw the deaths of four soldiers and one civilian, with another 65 people being wounded. We now know that the four people convicted of the bombing weren’t guilty, but how does it tie-in to the town?
What Happened?
If you don’t know the story of the Guildford Four then you’re unlikely to be on your own. The incidents took place in 1974 when a number of pubs in the town centre of Guildford were targeted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. The pubs in question were the Horse & Groom on North Street, the Three Pigeons on the High Street and the Seven Stars on Swan Lane, all of which were known to be venues that were frequented by members of the British Army. Such targets were considered to be ‘soft’ by the IRA, having authorised attacks on them a year earlier.
The Horse & Groom pub, which was believed to have been planted by a ‘courting couple’, exploded at 8.30pm on the 5th of October, resulting in the death of a civilian called Paul Craig, as well as two members of the Scots Guard, John Hunter and William Forsyth. Two members of the Women’s Royal Army Corps, Privates Anne Hamilton and Caroline Slater, also died. After the blast, the Seven Stars pub was evacuated, with the bomb there going off whilst the landlord of the venue and his wife were searching to ensure it was empty.
Although the landlord suffered a fractured skull and his wife a broken leg, in addition to some minor injuries of other members of staff and a customer, nobody died. The attacks kick-started a year-long campaign by what became known as the Balcombe Street Gang, which was an active service unit of the IRA that were eventually arrested in the December of 1975. The bombings themselves were carried out just five days prior to the General Election, leading to the swift passing of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in the November of 1974.
Who Were the Guildford Four?
The bombings were carried out at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. There was immediate pressure on the Metropolitan Police to arrest the IRA bombers, with arrests taking place in the December of 1974 when Paul Michael Hill, Gerrard Patrick ‘Gerry’ Conlon, Patrick Joseph ‘Paddy’ Armstrong and Carole Richardson were taken into police custody. By the time the trial came around they were 21, 21, 25 and 17 respectively. The trial resulted in their conviction on the 22nd of October 1975 at the Old Bailey in London.
The London-based IRA’s active service unit carried out more bombings, with the Woolwich pub bombing taking place on the seventh of November 1974, seeing two people killed and more than 30 injured. Two of the ‘Guildford Four’ were also convicted of the attack in Woolwich. In the wake of their arrests, all four confessed to carrying out the Guildford bombings after being interviewed intensely by the police, with accusations of intimidation and torture being levelled at the police in the weeks, months and years that followed the arrests and prosecutions of the four Northern Irish victims.
When the convictions went through, all four were sentenced to life in prison, which was mandatory for adults who had been convicted of murder at the time. Richardson, who was a minor when the bombings were carried out, was given a sentence ‘at Her Majesty’s pleasure’, which was for an indeterminate amount of time. Although the death penalty was still an option for those found to have committed treason, the judge in the case gave Conlon 30 years, 35 years to Armstrong and a sentence ‘until a great age’ to Hill.
Unsafe Convictions
There was a feeling from the very outset of the arrests of the ‘Guildford Four’ that something wasn’t right. The overall feeling around Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson, for example, was that they didn’t fit into what had been learned about IRA involvement at the time. The pair of them lived together in a squat and spend their time involved with drugs and petty crime, which was not common for members of the Irish Republican Army. Conlon, meanwhile, repeatedly asserted during his autobiography that his involvement with shoplifting would’ve stopped the IRA from using him.
Conlon has also been in London at the time of the bombing, visiting his aunt, Annie Maguire. As a result, a few days after his arrest, police also arrested Maguire and her family, which included Conlon’s father, Patrick ‘Giuseppe’ Conlon. They became known as the Maguire Seven, with Giuseppe dying towards the end of his third year in prison. The Seven were convicted of providing materials to make the bombs and offering other support, being handed sentences that ranged from four years to 14 years.
Wrongful Imprisonment & Forced Confessions
The Guildford Four had been held in prison for 15 years when it was determined on appeal that they had been tortured in order to give confessions. It was also true that the police had evidence that cleared the Guildford Four, but never provided it to their defence lawyers. Even as recently as 2024, more and more evidence continued to emerge. On the 5th of April 2024, for example, the lawyer for the Guildford Four, Alistair Logan, was critical of the Surrey Police force over the timing of the release of information about their conviction.
The timing of the release of new information was believed to be held back until after the Northern Ireland Legacy Act had been passed on the first of May, which ensured that those involved in the Troubles could look to receive immunity from prosecution. The conviction of both the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven is seen as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the history of the United Kingdom, with the Four convicted in 1975 and not released until 1989, with police knowingly concealing evidence at the time.