[U.K. Miscarriages
of Justice]

	MICHAEL HICKEY H.M.P Gartree Market Harborough Leics, England.	PAT MOLLOY Died in Prison
	VINCENT HICKEY H.M.P Long Lartin nr Evesham Worcs, England.	JIMMY ROBINSON H.M.P. Whitemoor Cambs. England
Summary of Evidence @ summer94		UPDATE

All four applied for leave to appeal. This was refused in the] cases of Michael Hickey, Vincent Hickey and Jim Robinson by the previous Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, in 1981. Pat Molloy died before his application could be heard.

In October 1987 the then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, referred the case to the Court of Appeal following the submission of fresh evidence by the Four's solicitor. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions, after the longest appeal hearing in English legal history.

Further fresh evidence was submitted to the Home Office in September 1990, June 1991, August 1991, October 1991, May 1992 and January 1993. This was rejected by the former Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, in February 1993.

Extensive and detailed petitions of further new evidence were submitted to the present Home Secretary on 8 June 1993, 13 July 1993, 10 November 1993, 15 November 1993 and 1 February 1994.

The nature and quality of this evidence casts -- at the very least -- grave doubt on the safety of the convictions. The place where this evidence, and, indeed, all the facts of the case, should be tested and subjected to detailed examination is in open court.

The only rational course of action for the Home Secretary is to refer the case to the Court of Appeal without further delay.

Pat Molloy claimed the confession was obtained by violence and intimidatiion. He told his solicitors:

''I was knocked about by the police. I was hit in the face,
  by Detective Constable Perkins I think; the plate of my
  false teeth was broken by one blow.  I was punhced. I was
  also under continuous questioing night and day, and, even
  when they left me, the door was hammered every half four.
  I was given nothing to drink, and had to drink water out of
  the toilet bowl. I was given food that was heavily salted.''

Acting on the reccomendation of his counsel, Pat Malloy did not enter the witness box to give evidence in his defence at the trial. Faced with a signed statement that he and others were involved in the murder, it was simply asking too much of the jury to take no account of the confession when considering the case against the others.

The question of the authenticity of the confession is, therefore, not only central to the case against Pat Molloy but to that of all four.

In June 1992, the jury foreman Mr Tim O'Malley wrote a private letter to the Home Secretary. He confirmed that the confession strongly and decisively influenced his judgement in respect of the others. He has since repeated this on television and in the press.

Pat Molloy died in June 1991, before his application for leave to appeal could be heard. His grounds of appeal were that the confession was obtained by force and violence.

Fresh evidence concerning Pat Molloy's detention and treatment in police custody has been discovered. This material casts serious doubt on the authenticity of the confession, which was unavailable to the defence at the original and subsequent court hearings.

The principal features are:

• Four independent linguistic experts commissioned by the defence each concluded that Pat Molloy was not the author of the confession [as police claimed at the trial].
• In 1991, the Home Secretary instructed Merseyside Police to carry out an investigation of the defence experts' findings. Leading forensic psychologist Dr Eric Shepherd was commissioned by them. He agreed with each of the defence experts' reports.
• The alleged confession was obtained by the late Detective Constable John Perkins, whom Pat Molloy said broke his teeth. A series of convictions involving DC Perkins, an officer of the now disbanded West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, have been quashed by the Court of appeal in recent years.
• In the case of R v Cheetham, the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, commented:
  ''Two officers have been shown to be, in effect, guilty of perjury. We consider that the demonstrated unreliability of Detective Constable Perkins.... is an overwhelming reason for quashing this conviction.''
• Pat Molloy could not have been ''jumping on the bandwagon'' when he made his accusations in 1978. He was indeed the first to make such allegations against DC Perkins.
• In a december 1993 letter to the Home Secretary, Dr Shepherd expressed the strong view that DC Perkins and others committe perjury at trial, when they swore on oath that Pat Molloy dictated the confession in his own words.
• The sworn testimony given at trial has since been chnaged by police officers. They now say the confessiom was based on ''trigger notes'' made by an officer who, they claim, was sitting outside Pat Molloy's police cell. These alleged notes have never been produced.
• In December 1993, De Shephers and another forensic pathologist Dr Anna Mortimer carried out tests at Wombourne Police station in Staffordshire, where Pat Molloy was held. Someone outside the cell can only hear what is being said if one person is speaking at a time, and there is absolute silence in the corridor and nearby office. The cells at Wombourne can accomodate at least five people without overcrowding. There was no need to have anyone sittimg outside taking notes.
• The existence and contents of fourteen police interviews with Pat Molloy were not disclosed to the defence at the 1979 and subsequent appeal hearings. In its May 1993 judgement in the case of R v Ward, the court of Appeal strongly criticised the non-disclosure of plice interviews at here 1974 trial as ''conviction by ambush''.
• Every officer who interviewd Pat Molloy either breached the then Judge's Rules governing the treatment of suspects or withheld evidence at trial.
• Mr Molloy was unlawfully held in solitary confinement for ten days in police cells. By way of illustration, even under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, suspects may only be held in police custody for a maximum of seven days (and, for that, the express authorisation of the Home Secretary in person is required).
• New evidence shows Pat Molloy was prevented from recieving legal representation at the magistrate's court. On one occasion, he was brough before magistrates at 9:00 a.m., one hour before his solicitor arrived at the usual court time of 10:00 a.m. He was not represented at all at his first two hearings.
• pat Molloy's police custody records have recently been disclosed. Comparison of entries made by custody officers and the schedule of interviews by detectives show at least 18 major discrepancies and irreconcilable contradictions. These include numerous occasions when interviewing officers claimed no interviews were taking place, while the custody records indicate that they were.
• Pat Molloy was interviews on at least 15 occasions in the abscence of a legal rpresenttaive after a solicitor had been instructed.
• Pat Molloy was interviewed in the abscence of a solicitor at least seven times after he had been charged. This directly contravened a specific Judges's Rule applicable in 1978. Several of these interviews have never previously been disclosed.
• He was unlawfully returned to police cells after the court had remanded him to prison.

''over seven years elapsed between the investigation
  into the murder of Carl Bridgwater and the misconduct 
  of which Detective Constable Perkins was later found
  guilty...... Perkins' misconduct at this much later date
  does not of itself provide a sufficient reason to doubt the
  propriety of any actions by Perkins in the Bridgwater
  investigation.''

• A statement from Michael Chamberlain, a close and long-standing friend of the late D.C.Perkins.
• Mr Chamberlain says Perkins boasted in advance that he would force Pat Molloy, by use of violence, to confess.
• He also states how Perkins' interrogation methods led to several suspects in other cases being hospitalised.
• Mr Chamberlain had previously declined to make a statement to the Merseyside Police team investigating the case. He saya that, at the time, he was ''too frightened'' of the consequences if he did so.
• New evidence shows dishonesty and corruption on the part of DC Perkins throughout his entire carreer. This included substantial misappropriation over many years of funds allocated for the payment of police informants.

Ritter has a long history of conviction for deception, theft and fraud. At least two psychiatric reports describe him as a ''pathological liar''. While conceding Ritter was a proven and persistent liar, the 1988 Court of Appeal found -- without ofering any supporting argument -- that in his evidence against Jim Robinson he was ''a witness of truth''. In April 1990, a recently retired prison officer Frank Gibson came forward with evidence concerning Ritter. Gibson stated:

• On the day the Court of Appeal upheld the convictions, he was on duty at Pentonville Prison. Mervyn Ritter was with him, listening to a radio report of the court's verdict.
• On hearing the verdict, Ritter shouted ''My Christ, they believed me.''
• When Gibson asked him whether he had told the truth at the hearing, Ritter indicated he had not.

Further evidence regarding Ritter's character and credibility includes:

• In 1989, he was befriended by a Christian group who provided him, on release from prison, with accomodation and other help. He robbed his hosts of cash and disappreared.
• Before disappearing, he claimed to his hosts he had twice escaped from prison to murder his wife and her boyfriend only to be recaptured before he could get to his intended victims. This does not square readily with the 1988 Court of Appeal's opinion that he might lie on trivial matters but not on anything as serious as murder.
• He was subsequently charged and convicted of a large number of frauds and deceptions.

Om 13th December 1979, Spencer killed farmer Hubert Wilkes at Holloway House Farm, Staffordshire --- next door to Yew Tree Farm, where Carl Bridgwater was murdered some fifteen months earlier. The two murders bore a striking similarity, particularly in the use of a shotgun in both cases.

Spencer was convicted of Hubert Wilkes' murder in 1980. He is currently serving life imprisonment.

Although he was questioned on several occasions in 1978 during the investigation of Carl Bridgwater's murder, police have always maintained that Spencer did not possess a shotgun at the time fo that murder.

New evidence refuting this claim was submitted to the Home Office in June 1993.

• A worcestershire couple who are antique dealers have signed a sworn statement that they sold a shotgun to Hubert Spencer before Carl Bridgwater's murder.
• They state they informed the police of this facr on several occasions during the investigation of Carl Bridgwater's murder.

Merseyside Police commissioned Dr Eric Shepherd, widely acknowledge as one of the country's leading forensic psychologists, to examine Pat Molloy's confession. Much of Dr Shepherd's distinguished career has been devoted to work on behalf of the police and the prosecution. His findings, which agree with the conclusions of defence experts, should not, therefore, be taken lightly.

In rejecting the case and referring the submissions of the defence experts, the former Home Secretary alleged that: nothing has been found which would appear to touch the safety of Mr Molloy's conviction.'' Several month's after the Home Secretary's rejection, and at considerable risk to his future career prospects, Dr Shepherd decided to make his findings public.

In his December 1993 report to the Home Secretary, Dr Shepherd expressed serious concern that the existence and contents of Pat Molloy's custody records -- which were available to Merseyside Police -- were not disclosed to him when he was commissioned by them. He has submitted a strong request that Merseyside Police be instructed to account for their conduct of the enquiry, and their selective reporting. He has also called for the case to be referred to the Court of Appeal without delay.

There is a further area of concern regarding that enquiry. Despite the fact that Merseyside Police were primarily instructed to investigate the findings of four defence linguistic experts regarding Pat Molloy's confession, at no time did the contact -- let alone interview -- any of those experts.

It is difficult to believe -- without the confession signed by Pat Molloy -- any jury would have convicted him on the evidence presented against him at trial.

The sole basis on which Michel Hickey remain convicted now amounts to what the Court of Appeal itself described as ''bits and pieces''; namely thaty, because Michael Hickey has consistently maintained that he was with his cousin Vincent Hickey -- amy miles from Yew Tree Farm -- when Carl Bridgwater was murdered, then he must be guilty because they believe Vincent to be guilty.

The success of this action should have importnat implications for many other cases which have been the subject of external police enquiries. [Events subsequent to Summer 1994 -- still no reference back to the Appeal Court! -- are detailed below].

The demand of the men, their families, their lawyers and their supporters are very modest. All the evidence now available in the case should be considered and tested by the courts.

It is a distressing feature of the case that -- on past experience -- the new evidence submitted may not be dealt with or another 18 months. If the Home Secretary then referred the case to the Court of Appeal, it may be a year or more before the case would be hears i.e. 1997, nearly twenty years after the men were imprisoned. [NOTE: and safely after the next general election! --DAVE].

In January 1996, Jim Robinson spent his 62nd birthday in prison, after more than 17 years imprisonment.

We do not ask him to acknowlede the obvious existence of new evidence in the case, and to afford the courts the opportunity to consider that evidence. Why should he find this eminently sensible course of action so difficult?

BRIDGEWATER4 CAPAIGN document, March 1994

UPDATE, APril 1996.

                                    Dave <XEMU>, April 1996