Franey / McKee Time Bomb

Irish Bombs, English Justice and the Guildford Four
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7384528-4-2
Verlag: Muswell Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

Fifty years after the Guildford bombings, the case remains profoundly relevant today. This new edition is completely updated and revised with startling new material. The Guildford Four endured 15 years behind bars for a crime they did not commit. The only evidence against them was their confessions extracted through intimidation and violence. Three Surrey police officers were acquitted of wrongdoing in 1993, but as this new edition reveals, there is testimony, never published, that corroborates evidence of far wider police malpractice. Time Bomb was central to the reopening of the case of the Guildford Four when it was published in 1988 - exposing this egregious miscarriage of justice, and telling the chilling parallel story of the men actually responsible for the bombings, the London Active Service Unit, whose 1974-75 IRA campaign terrorised Britain. Profoundly relevant today, as Michael Mansfield identifies in his introduction, the case of the Guildford Four is essentially the prototype of the corruption and concealment scandals which have beset the UK, from the Stephen Lawrence case through to the Post Office scandal, and asks how we can galvanise reform. 'Every twist and turn needs to be lived by the reader... page after page of compelling and mesmerising fact. As you proceed, the magnitude of these events strikes a sense of burning injustice.' Michael Mansfield

Grant McKee and Ros Franey made three acclaimed documentaries on the Guildford case. Ros Franey is a writer and producer

Autoren/Hrsg.

Franey, Ros

McKee, Grant

Leseproben

Introduction

michael mansfield kc

The devil is in the detail of this extensively revised book. A taster, let alone a summary from me will not do it justice! Nor a commentary, which would destroy its impact. Every twist and turn needs to be lived by the reader, as it was written originally, and in the manner it has been updated, page after page of compelling and mesmerising fact. It’s the only way for generations who were not born in the 1980s, and also for those who were, but whose memories have naturally faded in the mists of time. As you proceed, the power and magnitude of these events unerringly strikes a conscientious chord and a sense of burning injustice. These essential responses are frequently bypassed and replaced by a list containing shorthand references to the Guildford Four and the Maguires, along with others like the Birmingham Six, the Tottenham Three, the Cardiff Five, the Bradford Twelve and the Newham Seven.

What is important to remember in each of these cases, however, while you read this magnum opus, is that there are noted core similarities within all of them. The point is that the risk of repetition, unless lessons are learned and driven home, is ever present. It is only through the vigilance of the public, and particularly those most affected, that change of any kind can be inaugurated.

In case you think for one moment that the relevance of this is all old hat and everything has moved on, rest assured that human frailty and tainted mindsets have a nasty habit of reappearing in later generations – for example, the inquiry into the imprisonment of Andrew Malkinson, who spent seventeen years in jail for a crime he did not commit. Unless these faultlines are spotted early and rectified effectively, the quagmire of injustice will continue to reverberate and inflict untold damage. Examples follow in the paragraphs below.

It’s not the system which uncovers the faultlines but the victims, their families and friends. They combine to relentlessly fight the forces of prejudice and preconception. In each case they wring change from a recalcitrant, myopic authority which has been blinkered by denial. A matter starkly illustrated by Sir John May, who was commissioned to conduct an inquiry into the events so graphically described in this book, and is quoted on p. 347:

The miscarriages of justice which occurred in this case were not due to any specific weakness or inherent fault in the criminal justice system itself, nor the trial procedures which are part of that system. They were the result of individual failings on the part of those who had a role to play in that system and against whose personal failings no rules could provide complete protection.

Fortunately these sentiments bear little relation to reality and have been overtaken by a structure of rules and procedure that has rendered the recurrence of false or forced confessions a rarity. The full truth, however, about police malpractice has yet to surface, as the relevant police reports are still being withheld from the public for some seventy years!

To recapitulate for a second, the real point here is – it’s not over, by any means – that it’s the focus which has changed. The malaise described in this book has spread way beyond the confines of the criminal justice system. The familiar themes of extensive delay, despicable lies and deceit, lack of transparency and candour, deficient investigation, preconceived outcomes and unaccountability have been brought into the open by another generation of citizens. This time it goes to the heart of our democratic system, its very essence – the rule of law.

Flagrantly ignored by those in power (for example, ‘Partygate’ during Covid lockdowns, to Boris Johnson’s unlawful attempt to bypass the authority of Parliament in the hope of gaining a no-deal Brexit, to the procurement of NHS Covid contracts, to deportation of refugees to Rwanda), the themes outlined in the paragraph above have been laid bare in a series of momentous public inquiries and inquests, which have been brought about by the pressure of the victims and the public, with their origins coinciding with the same period as the observations by Sir John May.

The increasing and welcome deployment of cameras in the most recent hearings has enabled aspects of the evidence and the findings to shock public consciousness into demanding root and branch accountability and change. It’s a recognition that there has been too much, prevailing for too long, and that a bit of sticking plaster here and there, some tinkering with mechanisms, and even a change of government will not cut the mustard.

The Post Office scandal is now well-trodden ground. The story is on everyone’s lips thanks in large measure to the ITV series focusing on the singular efforts of the beknighted Alan Bates, amplified by the regular news transmissions from the hearings showing the ineptitude – and worse – of critical personae in this dark and devastating drama. Where innocent citizens were convicted, lives destroyed, truth distorted and hidden, and where deceit became the hallmark and mode of governance.

Running alongside this has been the Infected Blood Inquiry. This one has come to a conclusion with a verdict which is excoriating. Like this book, it needs to be read in full for its ramifications to be appreciated and correlated with the book itself. Thirty thousand patients between 1970 and 1991 contracted HIV and hepatitis C from treatment which included contaminated blood products. Three thousand died.

On 24 May 2024 when the report was published, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was compelled to admit that the

report shows a decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life. From the National Health Service to the civil service, to ministers in successive governments … at every level, the people and institutions in which we place our trust … failed in the most harrowing and devastating way. They failed the victims and their families – and they failed this country.

The speech and the report highlight the fact that it was known these treatments were contaminated and therefore the calamity was avoidable. Repeated warnings were ignored.

Some government papers were destroyed to make the truth more difficult to reveal – in short, a cover-up. ‘And throughout it all, victims and their loved ones have had to fight for justice … fight to be heard, fight to be believed, fight to uncover the whole truth.’ Those who died never heard how this came about, never saw any accountability and never received any apology – a shockingly familiar narrative.

Small wonder the prime minister labelled it a ‘day of shame for the British state’.

But there is yet more of similar ilk to come, with the Grenfell Fire report (unpublished at the time of going to press), and then, much further down the line, reports from the judicial inquiries into Covid-19 and undercover policing.

If these various developments are aggregated with some better-known scandals that have gone before – for example, the institutional behaviour concerning the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Marchioness disaster, Bloody Sunday, Hillsborough and the Ballymurphy massacre – the overall picture from Guildford onwards is abundantly clear.

Basic principles of good and fair governance have been ignored. They need to be reinforced, reinvigorated and restored as effective criteria against which the actions of public authorities may be measured. The Nolan Seven Principles of Public Life were enunciated in 1995, near the beginning of the period with which we are dealing. The Parliamentary Committee on Standards in Public Life was established in 1994 as a cross-party advisory group to compile a code of conduct, for the first time confronting and addressing culture rather than process. There was an urgent need then, as there is now, to restore trust and faith in a desperately failing system.

The seven principles relate to selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Four of these have a particular resonance and applicability here. Integrity is defined as the avoidance of obligations to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence work; by decision-making that does not seek to gain financial and other material benefits; and the declaration and resolution of any interests and relationships. Accountability – holders of public office (which applies to all the examples cited here) are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this. Openness – decisions must be taken in an open and transparent manner and information must not be withheld unless there are clear and lawful reasons for doing so. Honesty – holders of public office should be truthful(!).

Now apply these criteria to the Guildford case: the refusal of Sir John May’s Inquiry to explore allegations of far wider corruption within Surrey Police, as revealed in the final chapter of this book; or the force’s recent failure to investigate ‘new’ forensic evidence...