The Bridgewater Four are four men who were tried and found guilty of killing 13-year-old

paperboy A paperboy is someoneoften an older child or adolescentwho distributes printed newspapers to homes or offices on a regular route, usually by bicycle or automobile. In Western nations during the heyday of print newspapers during the early 20th cen ...

Carl Bridgewater, who was shot in the head at close range near

Stourbridge Stourbridge () is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Situated on the River Stour, Worcestershire, River Stour, the town lies around west of Birmingham, at the southwester ...

, England, in 1978. In February 1997, after almost two decades of imprisonment, their convictions were overturned and the three surviving defendants were released; the fourth defendant had died in prison two years into his sentence. Bridgewater's murder remains unsolved. The investigations were carried out by the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, which was later disbanded after an inquiry into corruption and mismanaged investigations.

Murder

Carl Bridgewater (2 January 1965 – 19 September 1978) was shot dead on 19 September 1978 at Yew Tree Farm near

, West Midlands, while delivering a newspaper to the house. The occupants of the house, elderly cousins Mary Poole and Fred Jones, were not home at the time. Police believed that Carl Bridgewater had arrived at the house and disturbed an intruder or burglar, and was subsequently forced into the living room of the house where he was shot once in the head at close range with a shotgun.

Conviction and sentencing

The Bridgewater Four were Patrick Molloy, James Robinson and cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey. They came to the attention of police working on the murder investigation following further armed robberies later in 1978. On 24 November, Robinson, Hickey and an unidentified third man carried out an armed robbery at a

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

supermarket on the Castle Vale estate in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

. Hickey and Robinson raided the safe while the third man held several terrified shoppers at bay with a gun. When the store manager tried to intervene, a shot was fired over his head. Six days later, Robinson and the Hickey cousins robbed an elderly couple at Chapel Farm, Romsley, near

Halesowen Halesowen ( ) is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Historic counties of England, Historically an exclave of Shropshire and, from 1844, in Worcestershire, ...

. Vincent stayed in the car while Robinson and Michael charged into the house wearing balaclavas, brandishing a shotgun and shouting for money. The victims of this robbery displayed great courage but the robbers got away with £200. Robinson took the lead, hitting one of the victims with the gun but not firing it. Molloy was the first to be arrested. During questioning which also covered the murder, Molloy told police that he had been in an upstairs bedroom at Yew Tree Farm while robbing the house when he heard a gunshot downstairs. Shortly afterwards, the other three men were arrested. All denied committing

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

, but three of them were convicted of murder at

Stafford Crown Court The Stafford Combined Court Centre is a Crown Court venue, which deals with criminal cases, as well as a County Court venue, which deals with civil cases, in Victoria Square, Stafford, England. History Until the early 1990s, criminal court hea ...

on 9 November 1979. The fourth, Molloy, was found guilty of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

. They were sentenced on 12 November. James Robinson (aged 45) and Vincent Hickey (aged 25) were both sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

with a recommended minimum term of 25 years, which would have kept them behind bars until at least 2004 and the ages of 70 and 50 respectively. Michael Hickey (aged 18) was sentenced to be detained indefinitely

at Her Majesty's pleasure At His Majesty's pleasure (when the reigning monarch is female, at Her Majesty's pleasure), sometimes abbreviated to the King's pleasure (or the Queen's pleasure), is a term of art in public law and in penal law. In public law, it refers to the ...

, though it was anticipated he would serve a shorter sentence than the two others convicted of murder due to his age. Patrick Molloy (aged 51) received a 12-year prison sentence on the manslaughter charge, but he died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

in prison, two years later.

Case quashed

An appeal in March 1989 was rejected, but on 21 February 1997, the convictions of the men were overturned after the

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

ruled that the trial had been unfair, due to certain areas of evidence fabricated by police in order to persuade the now-deceased Molloy to confess. The Appeal Judges noted that there might still be sufficient evidence to convict Vincent Hickey, but the

Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal adv ...

chose not to apply for a retrial or to prosecute him on another charge of armed robbery.David Graves, "Bridgewater Four convictions quashed", ''Daily Telegraph'' 31 July 1997.
Archived
web.archive.com) 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. The Court of Appeal agreed with a Home Office-appointed assessor that the Hickey cousins should lose a quarter of loss-of-earnings compensation for their free food and accommodation inside prison. Robinson died on 30 August 2007 of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

at the age of 73.

Bert Spencer

Over the years, convicted murderer Bert Spencer (born 1939) has been mentioned in the media as a possible suspect in the murder. Spencer, a uniformed ambulance driver who worked at Corbett Hospital in

lived in

Wordsley Wordsley is a suburban village near Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and is north of the River Stour. Wordsley is part of the Kingswinford and South Staffordshire Parliamentary constitu ...

and was a neighbour of Bridgewater, living five houses away. He was investigated by police in the immediate aftermath of the murder, not least because he drove a blue

Vauxhall Viva The Vauxhall Viva is a small family car that was produced by Vauxhall Motors, Vauxhall in a succession of three versions between 1963 and 1979. These were designated the HA, HB and HC series. The Viva was introduced a year after Vauxhall's fe ...

– the same type of car which had been seen at the farm on the afternoon of the murder. Witnesses also said that the driver of the car was a uniformed man. Spencer had a shotgun licence and was regularly allowed to shoot at Yew Tree Farm. However, he was eliminated from police inquiries within a few months after the arrest of the four other suspects. In December 1979, at a party at neighbouring Holloway Farm to celebrate Spencer's 40th birthday, Spencer shot dead 70-year-old Hubert Wilkes. He admitted to this while claiming it was a case of

and not murder.Mark Andrews
"Gun killer says he has fresh evidence to overturn his conviction"
30 January 2023 Like Carl, Hubert Wilkes had been shot while sitting on a sofa. Spencer was imprisoned for life in 1980 and served 15 years before being paroled in 1995. Spencer is featured in a book, ''Scapegoat for Murder: The Truth About the Killing of Carl Bridgewater'' (D&B Publishing), written by true crime author, Simon W. Golding. The author invited

criminologist Criminology (from Latin , 'accusation', and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'', 'word, reason') is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behaviou ...

David Wilson to interview Spencer, and in June 2016,

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

screened a television documentary, ''Interview with a Murderer''. In the course of the "interview of the year", Spencer's daughter revealed that she felt that her father was at Yew Tree Farm on the day of Bridgwater's killing "and possibly saw something". An ambulance station secretary (who was also a friend) who had provided the "cast iron" alibi that he had been "at work all day", admitted that she could not be sure that Spencer had not left at some point. Prof. Wilson, in his final meeting with Spencer, told him that he saw through Spencer's "kindly old grandfather schtick", adding that a P-scan test indicated Spencer was a manipulative and callous psychopath. The documentary concluded with Wilson interviewing Spencer's former wife, who had not spoken publicly before. She said that the day after the murder, Spencer told her he was disposing of his shotgun. She added that, Spencer having chosen to revive the issue to protest his innocence, it seemed likely that the police would reopen the case. However, in March 2017, after looking at the allegations in the television programme, the police told Spencer they would not be taking any action against him. Spencer initiated court proceedings in May 2024 against author Simon W. Golding, as he claims Golding's book ''Scapegoat for Murder: The Truth About the Killing of Carl Bridgewater'' is plagiarized from his own manuscripts, prepared while he was in prison - in 1993/4 with his cell mate, Frank Roden. Golding said: “I’ll go to prison before I send him a penny. The over-riding emotion is anger.” To date, neither Spencer nor anyone else other than the Bridgewater Four has been charged with the murder of Carl Bridgewater.''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', Monday, June 2016, page 10

References

External links