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Bridgewater case: new developments

01 January 1994

In January 1994 the campaign to free the three surviving men imprisoned for the murder of Carl Bridgewater achieved a number of huge gains. First, forensic psychologist Dr Eric Shepherd, who expressed surprise in 1993 that the case was not referred to the Court of Appeal, said that either the Merseyside Police, who conducted the inquiry into the Bridgewater case, were negligent in not passing on to the Home Secretary discrepancies in the prosecution evidence relating to Pat Molloy's crucial confession, or that, if the Home Secretary had the evidence, he was wrong in not referring the case back for a further appeal,

Then, on 20 January, the High Court granted leave to challenge the Home Secretary's refusal to give reasons for his decision not to send the case back to the Court of Appeal, in the light of the new evidence presented to him. And finally, material hitherto never disclosed to the Bridgewater 4's solicitor Jim Nichol (but available to the Merseyside inquiry headed by Ch Supt Baxter) supports the contentions of Molloy that the confession which convicted the 4 was made after extreme and illegal pressure. Custody records previously missing reveal that Molloy was subjected to at least 14 interviews never disclosed to the court at trial; that these interviews, conducted before his confession, took place in the cell instead of the interview room, at all times of the day and night, and always just after his solicitor, who travelled 50 miles to see him, had left the police station. The pattern of interviews is highly suggestive, to say the least, of oppression and of deliberate exclusion of the solicitor. Even when Molloy was taken to the magistrates court for further detention to be authorised, it was done at a special early morning hearing which the solicitor was not told about in advance. The Campaign has been bolstered by a favourable double- page write-up in the 21 January issue of Police Review under the heading "Doubts that won't go away", and plans another big push to get Home Secretary Michael Howard to refer the case as quickly as possible to the Court of Appeal.