Gerry Conlon

Yeah, even when we're reading about it, the brutality is so stark.

The way Gerry was coerced into a confession, beatings, psychological torture, cigarettes being put out on him, I mean, it's just so horrific.

So the idea that you would sign your name on the bit of paper to sanction all of that is just unthinkable.

Wally reaches for the telephone, his pulse smacking in his ears as his voice barks out.

And I'm Matt Ford.

And this is British Scandal, an Audible Original.

Okay, Matt, how are you feeling about Gerry's situation after we left him at the end of the last episode?

Obviously, in general, it's still at times pretty hopeless, but it does feel like we've reached a bit of a turning point for him, because his lawyer, Gareth Peirce, found the forensic scientist, Higgs.

which is a

movie about, well, centered on Gerry Conlon and his father Giuseppe, but obviously about the case of the Guildford Four and those miscarriages of justice.

When I still lived in Ireland, I interviewed Gerry Conlon.

We're now talking about 25 years ago, approximately.

And it was a really affecting experience for me because he was living in England at the time.

And even in that time, it became very obvious by his own statements that he was struggling with life as I say approximately 12 years after he had been released and that that injustice that he had suffered was really a continuing trauma and obviously I say that with um compassion and empathy for him rather than not at all in any way that would denigrate and You know, in journalism, I mean, people sometimes sort of whine about the difficulties or challenges of it.

And we tend to talk much less about things that are either a privilege or learning experiences for us.

And when I interviewed Gerry Conlon, I just understood in a different way than I had previously, the fundamental effects of such a massive injustice on someone's life and the fact that that injustice of course had been covered up for years and years I mean people had lied horrendously about him and his and the people who were wrongfully convicted along with him and then just briefly I mean I know I could talk for all about all these songs for a very long time but Sinead O'Connor I mean she seems at least to me to speak to such a sort of authentic Irish spirit I don't normally go in for the sort of what I consider maybe more cliched elements of Irish identity, but I do think that Irish people often have a very appropriate rebelliousness and an appropriate skepticism of authority and the narratives that authority spins out.

[children shouting] [door bell ringing] 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.

[door bell ringing]

[tyres screeching] A door flies open.

Two pairs of hands grab him, haul him inside.

Causing trouble again, Conlon?

Gerry feels sick.

I

remember watching it in the name of the father with a... about Guilford Fork and the kind of the police that were interrogating you know Daniel Lewis's character Gerry Conlon were cartoonish on with villainous but then you look at some of the reports and look at what happened you kind of go are they that cartoonish actually you know or did this actually kind of stuff carry on like you know I remember I told you before you know meeting Paddy Hill and you know he was at a debate in UCD and he showed us his legs all the cigarette butts that were you know put out on his legs and his whole teeth were destroyed like literally all knocked out with a gun a barrel of gun and his mouth destroyed all his teeth you know so yeah there was a lot of shocking stuff happened

Yeah.

Well, that's Tudors up, right? Yeah, yeah.