The Guildford Four | Day Trips to the Moon

British Scandal

The episode details the harrowing wrongful conviction of Gerry Conlon and his associates following the 1974 Guildford pub bombing. It traces

Key takeaways

• Detective Chief Superintendent Wally Simmons led the investigation into the Guildford bombing.
• Gerry Conlon was subjected to physical torture and sleep deprivation by police to extract a confession.

Main topics

• The Guildford Four
• The Troubles

Notable quotes

I don't know anything. I'm unemployed. A petty thief.

Conclusion

A profound examination of how state-sanctioned violence and prejudice

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of British Scandal ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. This episode contains strong language, descriptions of bomb scenes and police violence. Listener discretion is advised. What the hell do you think you're up to? Speaker 6 (0:18) I'm just coming here to work. Who Speaker 7 (0:20) are you? Speaker 6 (0:22) Alice, I'm Matt, I'm your colleague. Speaker 7 (0:24) Yeah, you're also a 43-year-old white guy from Nottingham. Speaker 6 (0:27) I am, yes. Speaker 7 (0:28) You 100 % fit the bill for a lot of bad stuff that's been going down around these parts. Look, Speaker 6 (0:34) just because some 43-year-old white men from Nottingham do bad things, it doesn't mean all of us do. Speaker 7 (0:41) Well, that's all I got to work on, so I have profiled you. Speaker 6 (0:44) OK, well, that feels slightly prejudicial. Speaker 7 (0:46) OK, I've seen the error of my ways. You're right, I came in a bit heavy-handed. and I feel like I owe you an apology, and I was just trying to find the bad guys. Speaker 6 (0:56) Alice, don't worry. I realise you've got a job to do. It's not easy, and I'm used to it, so it's cool. Just on a separate point, could I hide this bag of guns down there? Speaker 7 (1:09) Saturday 5th October, 1974. Guildford Police Station. Detective Chief Superintendent Wally Simmons rubs his eyes. He's just put in a ten-hour shift, and he's exhausted. He crushes out his cigarette. He's just about to head out when one of his sergeants bursts through the door. Horse and groom pub, sir. North Street. Wally sighs. He knows it well. He's tired of having to step in and break up fights between drunken soldiers, but he grabs his jacket. This Speaker 6 (1:44) already feels like so long ago, doesn't it? Cops doing ten-hour shifts, cigarettes, soldiers fighting in pubs. It was a better time. Speaker 7 (1:54) He jumps into his car. Speaker 7 (1:58) switches on his sirens. The noise usually scares the brawlers before he's arrived. But as he nears the scene, he spots a plume of dark, acrid smoke in the air. He turns the corner and stares in horror. The whole pub building is buckled. Inside is a charred, smouldering wreck. People stagger out, burned, blood-soaked and shocked. Speaker 7 (2:32) The stench of chemicals and charred flesh hits him like a punch to the gut as he realises this is a bomb attack. He races inside, the air thick with dust and smoke. He can just make out four, maybe five charred bodies in the wreckage. He feels his stomach turn. He looks down. A young woman, her face bloodied, reaches up to him. He drops by her side. Oh, Christ! Her legs a gnarled, bloody mass of flesh and bare bone. He takes off his tie, tries to stem the bleeding, looks around in desperation. Speaker 8 (3:13) We need a paramedic over here! Speaker 7 (3:16) Outside, he doubles over, gulps in the dusty air, feels his eyes prick with tears. In all his 29 years in the police force, he's never seen anything like this. He pushes through the crowd to his sergeant. Speaker 8 (3:30) Why wasn't the pub evacuated? Speaker 7 (3:32) The man's eyebrows arch up. No warning given, sir. Wally freezes. The IRA always calls ahead, giving civilians a chance to escape. He straightens up, tightens his jaw as five body bags are wheeled out. If they're not playing by the rules anymore, then neither will he. He'll do whatever it takes to hunt these murdering Irish scumbags down. And when he gets his hands on them, he'll make them wish they'd never been born. Speaker 2 (4:13) Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Business Wars from Audible Originals. In our new season, we track the Roomba's incredible rise as it sweeps into American homes, bringing in billions in revenue, and how the company behind it is now fighting for its life. Listen to Business Wars on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (4:32) Hey, I'm Cassie DePeckel, host of Against the Odds from Audible Originals. In our latest series, it's 1910 and a train full of passengers is trapped in Washington's Cascade Mountains with an avalanche headed straight for them. Listen to Against the Odds on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (4:51) From Audible, Speaker 7 (4:52) I'm Alice Levine. And Speaker 6 (4:54) I'm Matt Ford. Speaker 7 (4:55) And this is British Scandal, the show where we bring you the murkiest stories that ever happened on these odd little isles. Speaker 6 (5:01) British scandals come in many shapes and sizes. Some are about money, some are about sex. They're all about power. But Speaker 7 (5:08) when we look at scandals a bit closer, they turn out to be stranger, wilder, just plain weirder than we remember. So Speaker 6 (5:14) we're journeying back to ask who's to blame for what happened. Speaker 7 (5:17) And when the dust settled, did anything really change? Speaker 7 (5:30) OK, today, Matt, we are doing a story set in possibly the most pivotal year in British and Irish history. Speaker 6 (5:38) OK, 1994, when the Irish qualify for the World Cup and we don't, and Ray Houghton scores that absolute screamer against Italy. What Speaker 7 (5:45) would you do if I said yes, it's that? Speaker 6 (5:47) I'd be delighted. Speaker 7 (5:48) OK, well, it's not, and it's probably something, dare I say, more important. Speaker 6 (5:51) OK, I'm struggling to think what it might be. Speaker 7 (5:54) OK, really? No more guesses. Well, we are talking about the Troubles and specifically we're talking about a moment two years after Bloody Sunday. It's 1974. The Troubles have spilled onto the mainland. The IRA are bombing London. So people are avoiding public places, pubs, transport, public hubs. And the government is under huge pressure from the press and the public. to catch bombers. Speaker 6 (6:16) Yeah, because things were bad enough as it was. There'd been years of violence between Republican paramilitaries like the IRA and loyalists like the UVF, not to mention the role of the British Army in Ireland. And incredibly, things are now escalating. And Speaker 7 (6:29) those conditions, a scared Britain, an angry Britain, a Britain suspicious of anybody, basically, with an Irish accent, sets the scene for our story, the biggest miscarriage of justice, possibly in British history. This is episode one. Day trips to the moon. Two months earlier, September 1974, Belfast. 20-year-old Gerry Conlon picks up a transistor radio from the shelf. He flicks a glance towards the shopkeeper, looks away, then slips the radio into his torn sheepskin jacket and bolts out the door. Speaker 8 (7:16) Gerry Speaker 7 (7:17) darts down the street, jumps over a broken wall covered in IRA slogans. Crouches amongst the bombed out rubble. He holds his breath, heart thumping. He starts creeping across a patch of wasteland when a black zephyr screeches in front of him. A door flies open. Two pairs of hands grab him, haul him inside. Speaker 8 (7:44) Car's in trouble again, Conlon. Speaker 7 (7:46) Jerry feels sick. For one glorious second, he thought it was the RUC. Speaker 6 (7:53) It says a lot about where Gerry is in his life, that having just stolen from a shop, he would rather see the police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, than whoever this guy is. Speaker 7 (8:02) Yeah, what's he messed up in? Speaker 6 (8:04) Also, a real sign of the times, because they're not called the RUC anymore, they're called the PSNI, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, in the wake of the Belfast Agreement, the Good Friday Agreement. They felt, probably correctly, that having the word royal in there gave the impression that the police might favour one side. of the sectarian divide. So even though they still wear police uniforms and some of the insignia will bear the crown, the word royal is now gone. Speaker 7 (8:30) Inside the car, the man pulls Joey's face close. This is Speaker 8 (8:34) our patch. We don't want no trouble in it. And we don't want any RUC men sniffing Speaker 7 (8:40) around, looking for thieving little rats like you. Joey stares at the IRA man, hears himself gasp in fear as the man takes a pistol from his jacket. He shuts his eyes as the muzzle digs into his forehead. He wants to tell him they'll stop, but his throat is dry, tight with fear. He winces as the gun moves down to his kneecap. Here's the catch click, but the gun's back between his eyes. He sits rigid, his heart pounding in his chest. Speaker 8 (9:15) If we catch you again, Conlon, you know what'll happen. Speaker 7 (9:21) Jerry's body smacks hard on the road. He staggers to his feet, looks down at the smashed radio. He touches his head. His long dark hair is sticky with blood. Speaker 7 (9:39) An hour later, he sits in the kitchen as his mam dabs the cut on his head. Speaker 8 (9:44) Dear God, Gerry, they could have killed you. They beat that kid on the Falls Road so badly, he'll never be right again. Speaker 7 (9:52) He starts to tell his mum she worries too much when his dad snaps at him. Your mother's right. And what the hell were you doing stealing anyway? Speaker 6 (10:02) Finally, someone is going to tell him off for being a thief. Speaker 7 (10:06) Yes, I hear what you're saying, although he is... A young lad in the 70s in Belfast, and he's Catholic, so he's living under curfew. They're denied jobs. They're subject to stop and search by the British Army. So, no, he shouldn't steal. But prospects for a young Catholic lad right now, not great. Speaker 6 (10:25) I knew you were going to take his side because you never really left Radio 1. And you think... Where's this going? The more radios out there, the better for your Raja figures. Speaker 7 (10:36) Jerry looks away. The truth is he can't bear the disappointment on his dad's face or the fear in his mother's voice. Nobody wants to say it out loud. But as far as the IRA are concerned, they all know he's now a marked man. Speaker 6 (10:53) Which is terrifying because once you're on the IRA's radar, that's basically it. This is a group of people who act on their threats. And Speaker 7 (11:01) they are so powerful, the most powerful force in the country, not some random vigilantes. And as you say, their reputation precedes them, obviously, so he will know. Gerry will have seen people get violently maimed for doing probably less than he's done. And actually, he's got off lightly because they haven't shot him in the knees. Speaker 8 (11:22) But he knows that his days are numbered. Speaker 7 (11:25) He watches his dad reach into the cupboard, hands over a roll of notes from a tin, the housekeeping money. almost everything they have. Speaker 8 (11:35) You get the first ferry out tomorrow. Speaker 7 (11:38) Gerry hangs his head as his dad tells him. Speaker 8 (11:41) I'll ring your aunt Annie in Kilburn. Tell her you're on your way. Speaker 7 (11:46) I should say Giuseppe worked on the docks in Belfast and his job was spraying the ships with paint. And you can imagine the paint in 1970s Belfast, baby. That is some toxic stuff. Speaker 6 (12:00) It's just white lead. Speaker 7 (12:01) And you might as well just spray it into your mouth because they didn't give him a mask. And that's why he sounds like that. He's got TB. Jerry feels his face flush with shame. He looks at the money in his hand. It should be going towards his dad's medicines, food for his sisters. He wants to tell them he's sorry for all the trouble he's caused. Instead, he takes a deep breath and decides he's going to sort himself out, start again in London. They are sacrificing their health, their future to save him. And for maybe the first time ever, he's determined to make them proud. Speaker 7 (12:46) A few weeks later, North London. Speaker 7 (12:50) Gerry