PM apologises for 'miscarriage of justice'

Prime Minister Tony Blair today publicly apologised to the 11 people wrongly imprisoned for IRA bomb attacks on two pubs in the 1970’s.

In a statement recorded for television, Mr Blair, who had been widely expected to make the apology in the House of Commons, but had met with the victims in private, said: "The Guildford and Woolwich bombings killed seven people and injured over 100.

"Their loss, the loss suffered by their families, will never go away. But it serves no one for the wrong people to be convicted for such an awful crime.

"It is a matter of great regret when anyone suffers a miscarriage of justice. There was a miscarriage of justice in the case of Gerard Conlon and all the Guildford Four as well as ‘Giuseppe’ Conlon and Annie Maguire and all of the Maguire Seven.

"And, as with the others, I recognise the trauma that the conviction caused the Conlon and Maguire families and the stigma which wrongly attaches to them to this day. I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice.

"That`s why I am making this apology today. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."

The Guildford Four - Gerry Conlon, Paddy Armstrong, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson - were arrested in 1974 and jailed for life the following year for their alleged part in the 1974 bomb attacks in Guildford and Woolwich, which killed seven people.

Soon after the Maguire Seven – Anne Maguire, Patrick Maguire, Vincent Maguire, Patrick Maguire Jnr, William Smyth, Patrick "Giuseppe" Conlon and Patrick O‘Neill – were also wrongly jailed for alledgedly playing a part in the bombings.

In October 1989, the Court of Appeal quashed the sentences of the Guildford Four amid doubts raised about the police evidence against them. Two years later the Birmingham Six also had their convictions overturned on appeal. However, one of those convicted, Giuseppe Conlon, had died in jail in January 1980. He was still protesting his innocence.

Commenting on today's apology, Gerry Conlon, who had famously emerged from the Appeal Court in 1989 to declare, "I have been in prison for something I did not do. I am totally innocent," said: “Tony Blair has healed rifts, he is helping to heal wounds. It's a day I never thought would come."

Mr Conlon was today confirmed as a speaker at the SDLP annual conference to be held in Londonderry this weekend.

Irish Taioseach Bertie Ahern said he hoped those who had been wrongly jailed could now “move on with their lives”.

(MB/SP)