Capital Punishment

[Thomas]

By the way john i will leave you with this link. Sloppy forensics didnt let the mcguire 7 off the hook as you suggest , sloppy forensics helped get the innocent mcguire 7 convicted in the first place for a crime they didnt commit.

Faulty forensic testing convicted Maguire Seven

[/b]

Sloppy laboratory practice helped to convict members of the Maguire

family, a leading forensic scientist said, following the disclosure in the

Court of Appeal that test kits used to detect traces of explosives were

contaminated.

[/b]

A fresh appeal, prompted by the release of the Guildford Four last year,

was suddenly adjourned last week after the court was told that in 1977 a

chance review of test kits by Home Office scientists had discovered that

some kits had been contaminated with explosives. The test kits contain swabs

and a solvent which police use to take samples from the suspects' hands.

At the time, three laboratories were producing test kits: the Home Office,

the Metropolitan Police and the Royal Armament Research and Development

Establishment (RARDE). The solvent – ether – is believed to be the source

of the contamination.

[/b]

Brian Caddy, director of the forensic science unit at the University

of Strath clyde, said it was 'bad laboratory practice' for the control not

to repeat the experiment exactly. He said that after the passage of so much

time it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened.



Caddy was one of the team of forensic scientists working on the evidence

for Sir John May's inquiry into the cases of the Guildford Four and the

Maguire Seven. The May inquiry severely criticised the forensic evidence

which convicted the Maguire Seven.

[/b]

The contamination of the test kits has implications for other people

who were convicted of handling explosives in the 1970s and is likely to

result in other appeals. Caddy said he was 'very sad and upset. This is

bringing forensic science into disrepute.'

[/b]







Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13017691-600-faulty-forensic-testing-convicted-maguire-seven/#ixzz6BSyq6KXI">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... z6BSyq6KXI">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13017691-600-faulty-forensic-testing-convicted-maguire-seven/#ixzz6BSyq6KXI

[Thomas]

It was later described that the mcguire 7`s wrongfull conviction was one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in english legal history.



Sometimes john i believe you let blind hatred overcome common sense decency and fact. BBC presenter steven nolan , born in the loyalist shankill road in belfast , made the bbc documentary highlighting the injustice of the mcguire 7 case and commented he had never made a film that had made him so very angry.



The forensics were discredited later on because the test for nitroglycerine that the prosecutions whole case relied on was not specific only for that substance ,the test kit was already contaminated before it was used , no bomb making equipment was ever found in their house , and the perpertrators of the bombing told the english polis they commited the crime , and that they had innocent people in prison two years after their conviction.



Among them a 14 year old wean getting sent to an adult prison for a crime he didnt commit .



To suggest they were guilty and merely let off becasue of some F@@@ up is nothing short of an outrageous slur. Its fantasy john , im surprised at you , this is nothing more than the sort of thing i would expect from nutjobs like wiggles and lotsov the autism denier.



https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv/nolans-documentary-highlights-injustice-of-maguire-seven-case-37540598.html">https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ente ... 40598.html">https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv/nolans-documentary-highlights-injustice-of-maguire-seven-case-37540598.html

RARDE knew they had a problem with contamination, just as they knew that the TLC test was not specific for nitroglycerine. They were happy to lie their way out of any criticism and to commit perjury on an industrial scale. In so doing they caused seven innocent people to be sentenced to massive terms of imprisonment, caused untold misery to them and their families, caused mental health issues particularly with post-traumatic stress disorder, destroyed families, snatched childhoods away from young children and took fathers and a mother away from their families. And the sentence Guiseppe Conlon received killed him.

[/b]

True story behind Guildford Pub Bombings - one of UK's worst miscarriages of justice

BBC2's A Great British Injustice: The Maguire Story tells of the aftermath of the Guildford pub bombings - here's what happened

[/b]





https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/true-story-behind-guildford-pub-13634496">https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/t ... b-13634496">https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/true-story-behind-guildford-pub-13634496

[papasmurf]

this may have something to so with the fact that as soon as anyone remotely "troubling" in appearance or behaviour gets to within 100 yards of an MP's home an armed response vehicle rocks up to deal with it, while the other 68 or so million of us have nothing like that level of "protection"

That is why I never go within 30 miles of Iain Duncan Smith's rent free grade one listed mansion.

[Thomas]

They of course deny they were .....

Well john , i believe your country is similar to mine and most other civilised countries , where a person is innocent until proven guilty.



Prove the mcguire 7 were IRA members.?

[Thomas]

You have misunderstood my point.



https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/remembering-the-birmingham-six-the-guildford-four/3010226">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pr ... ur/3010226">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/remembering-the-birmingham-six-the-guildford-four/3010226



Read the transcript.



Now, the facts are misrepresented even here, but this will do as the only FREE source of the facts as I understand them from my own first profession, that of molecular biology



Because what actually happened is the forensic analysis  fucked up the test for contact with explosives, so that it falsely reported contact with explosives...



The arse who was involved made other cockups too.



And like Freddy Patel  sod all was done about their incompetence

Right but that wasnt the guildford four john was it?



From memory it was the mcguire 7 who were supposed to be the bomb makers who were found to have through forensics contact with explosives.



It wasnt a cock up , they were acquitted john. They were innocent , and their only crime was having an irish accent in 1970`s london and being in the wrong place at the wrong time .

A great British injustice: the Maguire Seven revisited



They were told that they were being arrested for terrorist offences. They were split up and taken to two North London police stations. Each of them had their hands swabbed and scrapings were taken from under their fingernails. The order in which this was done was determined by the officer doing the swabbing. The four lots of swabs were then delivered in two separate deliveries to the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment at Woolwich. There the swabs were tested by a young trainee forensic scientist. He chose the order in which he tested them and recorded the testing as he did it.



That testing was to become critical in what was to happen later. It involved irrigating the swabs with ether to extract any material that might be contained on the swabs and then, using a technique known as thin layer chromatography, the extractions were tested to see if they produced a result.



They did. The forensic scientists told the police that the tests were positive for nitroglycerine and that the test that they were using was specific for nitroglycerine. Anne and her husband Patrick, Vincent and Patrick Jr, Sean Smyth, Guiseppe Conlon and Pat O'Neill were all charged with possession of nitroglycerine.



Lies and forensics

The scientists at Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) knew that the thin layer chromatography (TLC), test was not specific for nitroglycerine. There was another explosive, PETN, which is chemically completely dissimilar to nitroglycerine, which proved positive on the test and was indistinguishable from nitroglycerine.



The scientists had sent a memo to Dr John Yallop, who was the former director at RARDE, and who was advising the Maguire Seven defence teams, telling him that they had discovered this fact sometime in the summer of 1974 (i.e., before the Guildford bombing). The whole case against the Maguire Seven was based on the specificity of the TLC test. The forensic scientists gave evidence in court as to the specificity of the test excluding any other possible substance.



That was a lie – as they knew full well.



The defence were presented with an insuperable problem. The TLC test had not been tested on every known substance or combination of substances so that the specificity of the test was not disproven by extensive testing against all known substances.



The judge, Mr Justice Donaldson, cleverly turned the matter around, arguing that if specificity was being challenged it was for the defence to prove that some substance other than nitroglycerine could produce the same result on the test. The defence were unable to prove that any other substance would prove positive.



As the trial drew to a close, and after all evidence had been given, Dr Yallop found the memo.



Again, the judge was clever. He asked the barristers representing the Maguire's whether they wanted the jury to know that the test was not specific and that another explosive had been discovered which proved positive and indistinguishable from nitroglycerine on the test. The barristers backed down.



It was for the Crown to prove whether the substance found on the tests was nitroglycerine and, having pinned their colours to a charge which specified nitroglycerine which relied on the test being specifically to reveal that explosive, what the judge should have done (and what the defence barristers should have argued for) was to bring the trial to close. It was absolutely plain that the Crown could not prove the presence of nitroglycerine. Further the police could not prove that PETN had been involved in the Guildford bombings as there was no scientific evidence to show that the other explosive (PETN) was involved. All the scientific analysis demonstrated was that it was a nitroglycerine-based explosive that was used in the bombs placed in the pubs.

[/b]



https://www.thejusticegap.com/a-great-british-injustice-the-maguire-seven-revisited/">https://www.thejusticegap.com/a-great-b ... revisited/">https://www.thejusticegap.com/a-great-british-injustice-the-maguire-seven-revisited/



The whole forensics argument was nothing more than an elaborate lie. I cant believe all these years later , you actually believe they were guilty and merely let off because of some "F@@@ up".



FFS john take the blinkers off.

[johnofgwent]

Interesting to note that the majority of MPs have consistently been against the death penalty while public opinion polls have — except for a few years in the late '60s — been in favour. But no one appeared to want to take any government of the day to court over not following the people's wishes, or not allowing a referendum...

this may have something to so with the fact that as soon as anyone remotely "troubling" in appearance or behaviour gets to within 100 yards of an MP's home an armed response vehicle rocks up to deal with it, while the other 68 or so million of us have nothing like that level of "protection"



now, while i would not go so far as to suggest diane abbott's comments televised live on Andrew Neill's funfest that "it is so important to know where these people live " [so she can send peter hain's boot boys round to sort them out] should apply to MP's, it does seem to me that if they were forced - perhaps through the current process allowing petitioning for ejection of any convicted criminal being widened to cover electoral disgruntlement - to actually do the job of REPRESENTING their constituents or face far more ready replacement by someone who will - then they would actually start promoting those views in the house.



which may be a good thing or a bad thing, but the one thing it would have certainly led to is the removal in very, very short order of the wreckers who damn nearly ran this country onto the rocks over the last three years through refusal to enact the will of the people

[johnofgwent]

Got to be careful here, I keep getting warnings for daring to have an opinion. We have drifted away from the thread title, and started to worry about IRA terrorists. That fact is the Guildford four were all IRA members, and that alone justified them being hung. We now live in a day an age where prison cells are at a premium, and the population is massive. Surely, even if it means we execute a few innocent people a year, it's a small price to pay in order the tax payers money isn't spent keeping scumbags alive !

They of course deny they were .....



Mind you, the only guy I know about who delights in admitting it has a letter from Peter Hain stating "get out of jail free (unlimited use)"

[johnofgwent]

Possibly another thread, but I believe jury members should be full time professional people, not members of the public who can be swayed by a more successful and richer barrister.

F@@@ NO



Down that road lies one form of justice for socioeconomic group ab and a quite separate one for jeremy Kyle show fans ...

[johnofgwent]

John the guildford four were innocent.

You have misunderstood my point.



https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/remembering-the-birmingham-six-the-guildford-four/3010226">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pr ... ur/3010226">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/remembering-the-birmingham-six-the-guildford-four/3010226



Read the transcript.



Now, the facts are misrepresented even here, but this will do as the only FREE source of the facts as I understand them from my own first profession, that of molecular biology



Because what actually happened is the forensic analysis  fucked up the test for contact with explosives, so that it falsely reported contact with explosives...



The arse who was involved made other cockups too.



And like Freddy Patel  sod all was done about their incompetence

[Wiggles]

we just round up the first 15 gullible idiots we can find  , bung them a few quid  , and let them loose on the jury benches.



No a bad wee system , not perfect by any means  , but it does us.

Possibly another thread, but I believe jury members should be full time professional people, not members of the public who can be swayed by a more successful and richer barrister.

[Thomas]

We have enough trouble finding 12 good men and true, how you find 15 in Glaschu goodness only knows.  ::

we just round up the first 15 gullible idiots we can find  , bung them a few quid  , and let them loose on the jury benches.



No a bad wee system , not perfect by any means  , but it does us.

[Barry]

...and 15 jury to your 12 .

We have enough trouble finding 12 good men and true, how you find 15 in Glaschu goodness only knows.  ::

[Thomas]

The Scots have a system which has guilty, innocent and not proven.

...and 15 jury to your 12 .

[Barry]

 We now live in a day an age where prison cells are at a premium, and the population is massive. Surely, even if it means we execute a few innocent people a year, it's a small price to pay in order the tax payers money isn't spent keeping scumbags alive !

If you look back in history, the statistics for unsafe convictions for murder over the years has not been a few people a year, it has been less than a handful each decade, and even then, they may have been acquitted, but not really proven innocent.

The Scots have a system which has guilty, innocent and not proven. If people are 100% guilty  of certain serious crimes, involving emergency workers, MPs, children and terrorism, I'd be in favour of knocking them off.

[Thomas]

 That fact is the Guildford four were all IRA members, and that alone justified them being hung.

prove it or be shown yet again to be talking shite wiggy.