Trial
The four were found guilty at their Old Bailey trial in 1977 of seven murders, conspiring to cause explosions, and falsely imprisoning John and Sheila Matthews during the siege. O’Connell, Butler and Duggan each received twelve life sentences, and Doherty eleven. Each of the men was later given a whole life tariff, the only IRA prisoners to receive this tariff.
During their trial they instructed their lawyers to "draw attention to the fact that four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences" for three bombings in Woolwich and Guildford. Despite claiming to the police that they were responsible, they were never charged with these offences and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven remained in prison for fifteen more years, until it was determined that their convictions were unsafe.
Read more about this topic: Balcombe Street Siege
Famous quotes containing the word trial:
“The trial by market everything must come to.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“I have proved by actual trial that a letter, that takes an hour to write, takes only about 3 minutes to read!”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)