Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologised to the Guildford Four who were wrongfully convicted of IRA bomb attacks in England in 1974. In a letter, Mr Blair acknowledged the “miscarriage of justice” which they suffered as a result of their wrongful convictions. Details of the apology are revealed for the first time in a special two-part edition of BBC Northern Ireland’s Spotlight programme, on the changing fortunes of West Belfast man Paul Hill, to be broadcast on 6 and 13 June. Paul Hill, Gerry Conlon, Patrick Armstrong and Carole Richardson, were given life sentences for bombing public houses in Guildford, Surrey. Each of them spent 15 years in prison before the convictions were overturned by the Court of Appeal in 1989. Mr Hill and Mr Armstrong were also wrongfully sentenced for a bomb attack in Woolwich. A total of seven people died in the Guildford and Woolwich explosions. The apology, personally signed by the Prime Minster, was sent by Mr Blair to Paul Hill’s wife, Courtney Kennedy Hill, the daughter of the assassinated American Attorney-General Robert Kennedy, and niece of the late John F Kennedy. The prime minister wrote: “I believe that it is an indictment of our system of justice and a matter for the greatest regret when anyone suffers punishment as a result of a miscarriage of justice. “There were miscarriages of justice in your husband’s case, and the cases of those convicted with him. I am very sorry indeed that this should have happened.”
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