Bridgewater Four

From Free net encyclopedia

The Bridgewater Four was the collective name given to the quartet of men who were tried and found guilty of killing teenage paper boy Carl Bridgewater. After 18 years their convictions were overturned. The case has never been solved.

Carl Bridgewater, age 13, was shot dead at Yew Tree Farm, near Stourbridge, Staffordshire, on September 19, 1978, when he disturbed burglars while delivering a newspaper to the house. The elderly couple who lived there were not at home.

The Bridgewater Four were Patrick Molloy, Jim Robinson and cousins Michael Hickey and Vincent Hickey. All denied committing murder but three of them were convicted. The fourth, Molloy, was found guilty of manslaughter. Robinson and the Hickey cousins were sentenced to life imprisonment after their trial in 1979 but protested their innocence from start to finish of their incarcerations. Molloy died in prison in 1981.

In 1997 the latest in a number of appeals finally saw the men's convictions overturned, after the Court of Appeal ruled that the trial had been unfair, due to evidence fabricated by police in order to persuade Molloy, by far the eldest of the defendants, to make a confession. The campaign to free and absolve the four men was led by Michael Hickey's mother Ann Whelan and campaigning journalist Paul Foot. Preparations were made for a case against four police officers in the Staffordshire force on charges of fabricating evidence, but the case was dropped in December 1998.Template:Crime-stub