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UK: Bridgewater 4 cleared after 18 years

01 January 1997

Three men, who served more than eighteen years in prison for murder on the basis of a confession forged by the police, walked free from the Royal Courts of Justice on February 21. When the men, Jim Robinson and cousins Michael and Joseph Hickey, left the court, after being granted bail in anticipation of an uncontested appeal, traffic was brought to a standstill by crowds who had flooded onto the streets to witness their release. Pat Molloy, the fourth man convicted of the murder of 13-year old Carl Bridgewater after a bungled robbery in 1978, died in Gartree prison, Leicestershire in 1981.

The Crown admitted that the prosecutions were not safe after electrostatic document analysis (Esda) revealed that a purported "statement" from Vincent Hickey, which was used to coerce a confession from Pat Molloy, was forged. Molloy, whose confession was the basis of the case against the four men, immediately retracted this statement when he was eventually given access to a solicitor.

One of the policemen behind the confession was DC John Perkins, part of the West Midlands serious crime squad which was responsible for the 17-year imprisonment of the Birmingham 6, before it was disbanded in 1989 amid overwhelming evidence of extensive corruption. DC Perkins, who is now dead, was named in seventeen, of almost one hundred cases, that were investigated by another police force. Another of the police officers accused of fabricating evidence against the men, DC Graham Leake, issued a statement through his solicitor rejecting allegations of "improper practice".

Guardian 21 & 24.2.97.