COURT OF APPEAL AT THE OLD BAILEY ( GUILDFORD 4 ) 1977.

THE TIMES

11^th OCT , 1977.

 

Visitors are banned in bomb case

Intensive security was in force for the opening at the CentraI Criminal Court yesterday of appeals by three Irishmen and a London girl against their convictions two years ago of bombings at public houses at Guildford, Surrey and Woolwich, London. All were given life sentences.

The unprecedented move by the Court of Appeal from the Law Courts to Court 2 at the Central Criminal Court was made for security reasons.

When the hearing opened before Lord Justice RoskiII, Lord Justice Lawton and Mr. Justice Boreham, Sir Michael Havers, QC for the Crown, applied for a ban on all visitors to the four people in the dock and to four men expected to give fresh evidence on their behalf.

 The court agreed that Patrick Armstrong, Carole Margaret Richardson, Paul Michael Hill and Gerard Patrick Conlon should not receive visitors, except their lawyers, throughout the hearing, which is expected to Iast two weeks.

The ban will also apply to the proposed new witnesses, four men each given multiple life sentences at the Central Criminal Court earlier this year for IRA murder bombings, the killing of Mr. Ross McWhirter, the author, and the holding as hostages of Mr. John and Mrs. Sheila Matthews at their flat in Balcombe Street, Westminster.

 Mr. John Leonard, QC, for Mr. Armstrong, said he wanted to all new evidence from four Provisional IRA men already convicted of other outrages in London, including the Balcombe Street siege. He read extracts taken from statements made by them before their trial.

One of them, Edward Butler, admitted being at the Woolwich bombing on November 7, 1974, counsel said. When questioned in December, 1975 by Superintendent James Neville, of the bomb squad, Mr. Butler as asked when he first started bombing and shooting. He replied: "At Woolwich ; something that you have already put someone away for." When asked if either Mr. Armstrong or Mr. Hill was on the raid, he replied that they were not.

Mr. Leonard said that in statements made in Brixton prison, last November, Martin Joseph O'Connell, Mr. Butler and Harry Duggan, of the Balcombe Street four, absolved Mr. Armstrong and his three fellow defendants of complicity in the public house bombings.

They would say that the fourth man, Brendan Dowd (also serving a life sentence for terrorist activities) and a girl, not Miss Richardson, left the bomb at the Horse and Groom, and that Mr. O'Connell , another man and a girl deposited the bomb at the Seven Stars.

All four new witnesses admitted involvement in the Woolwich explosion, Mr. Leonard said. On the basis of that new evidence all four appellants alleged that their convictions were unsafe and unsatisfactory.

Sir Michael Havers said the Crown did not oppose the calling of the new witnesses, and Lord Justice Roskill said the court would hear the evidence.

The hearing continues today.