Three articles from 22 February 1997 - the date on which the men were released on bail (the convictions were formally quashed at a later date) - are reprinted here, all from The Times:
Cheers in court for freedom after 18 lost years
How lawyer's hunch paid off
Leader article: Too long to languish

An article from the New Statesman looking at how the men will have to rebuild their lives:
From jail ... to what? 

Two former police officers may face criminal charges after three men jailed for murdering Carl Bridgewater were freed yesterday amid allegations of "serious, substantial and widespread police malpractice". [They have still not been prosecuted. See report from December 1998].

The detectives have been interviewed about a forged confession which was instrumental in bringing the men to trial and sending them to jail for 18 years. A third officer implicated by new scientific evidence has since died.

Yesterday the Crown accepted that the fresh evidence left the prosecution case fundamentally flawed, and Michael Hickey, Vincent Hickey and James Robinson were freed on bail pending an April hearing when they will almost certainly be cleared. The manslaughter conviction against Patrick Molloy, who died in 1981, was quashed immediately.

After the hearing, the Prime Minister said that he expected an inquiry into the original convictions and another within the police. Merseyside detectives are investigating the way Staffordshire Police conducted the murder inquiry after 13-year-old Carl was found shot dead at an isolated farmhouse near Stourbridge. The officers named in court yesterday were, however, from the West Midlands force, assigned to the case by the regional crime squad.

The release of the three men yesterday came after the discovery this month of scientific evidence proving for the first time the existence of a bogus confession statement which Molloy claimed had been used to trick him into admitting involvement in the crime. He had alleged that detectives had shown him a statement by Vincent Hickey, but the police always insisted that no such statement existed.

The new evidence proved that a confession by Hickey had been forged, and two of the officers involved in the interviewing of Molloy have been questioned. Former Detective Sergeant John Robbins had been sitting outside the room while former Detective Constable Graham Leeke and the late Detective Constable John Perkins conducted the interview that resulted in Molloy's confession.

The Court of Appeal was told yesterday that Mr Robbins and Mr Leeke had been interviewed on Thursday. "There may well be criminal charges and proceedings against them," Patrick O'Connor, for James Robinson, said. Mr Leeke, who now works as a security guard, later refused to comment.

Michael Mansfield, QC, for Molloy said that the fake confession was "only a small part of serious, substantial and widespread police malpractice involving a number of very high-ranking officers down to the lowest, who must have been involved in what was going on".

He said that the particular ground of Molloy's confession meant that the convictions were unsafe, and Lord Justice Roth agreed that without it, the Crown would have had no case. The judge said that he had no reason to believe that the convictions would not be quashed.

The Hickey cousins and Robinson had been greeted with tumultuous applause and cheering from about 150 supporters when they were led to the dock and they punched the air as the judge announced that they were to be freed on bail. As they left the court buildings, they hugged their families and Michael Hickey bent to kiss the ground.

Afterwards they denounced the criminal justice system and the West Midlands Police in particular. Robinson said: "It was not a case of one rotten apple in the barrel, they were all rotten. You had to be rotten to get into the barrel. It wasn't about over-zealous policemen thinking they had the right guys, it was a concerted conspiracy."

Vincent Hickey, still wearing prison clothes, said: "Not only have the police been devious and deceitful by keeping innocent men in prison. Far worse, after having a child killed, they have deceived Mr and Mrs Bridgewater." He went on to pay tribute to his own and Michael Hickey's mothers for the way they had campaigned for their release. Robinson said that Anne Skeet and Ann Whelan should be rewarded in the New Year's Honours List. "The problem for the West Midlands Police force was that they happened to fit up Ann Whelan's son. They got a tiger by the tail.

"That woman there is four foot and she and our solicitor have told people who didn't want to know. They were long lonely years, we have cried with despair and people have looked at us with contempt in their eyes for killing a kid. I am not bitter but I am angry it has taken so long. This is not new evidence, it is stuff that has been there from day one."

Nick Molloy, the son of Patrick Molloy, said: "I feel very sad. It's great to see these men today. I salute the heroes ­ these men. They have courage, true courage."

Mrs Whelan was glad that the battle was over, but she remained angry that the men had suffered years of abuse. "I was very much on my own for years," she said. "But I just fought and fought and fought. The worst time was when people refused to listen. The authorities knew they were innocent, but they didn't want to hear. There is still a lot of fighting to be done, but Michael just needs time to think now."

THE crucial evidence that led to the release of the Bridgewater Three lay undiscovered in their files for seven years until their solicitor found it two weeks ago.

A confession statement by Patrick Molloy taken in Wombourne police station in December 1978 ­ which proved vital to the conviction of all the men ­ was subjected to Electrostatic Document Analysis (Esda) in 1990.

Esda, a technique not available when the men were sentenced, can show if documents have been altered and reveal impressions left by other sheets of paper. But the forensic scientists Robert Radley and Dr Anthony Hardcastle found no sign that the statement had been tampered with.

And the only imprints they could detect were consistent with those that they would have expected on a document taken from a stack of witness statements. "They found impressions of a familiar caption which one finds at the beginning of every statement under caution, Jeremy Roberts, QC, for the Crown told the Court of Appeal yesterday. "There was nothing in the least surprising about finding that there. It is exactly what one would expect to find there.

though they did not realise it, was that the name Vincent Hickey could, in fact, be seen in two places in that caption."

Molloy always claimed that he had been tricked into making his admission by being shown a confession by Hickey. But the police said no such statement existed.

That was disproved by the discovery of Hickey's name and "signature" among the few words protected by the exhibit label on the front page of Molloy's statement. Most of the other imprints had disappeared with handling over the years.

What Radley and Hardcastle did not know was that Hickey was interviewed in Redditch police station, 25 miles away from Molloy, and any statement he made could not have been written on the same pad. The results of the Esda test were therefore never passed to the defence.

The importance of the imprint was finally discovered two weeks ago when Jim Nichol, the convicted men's solicitor, was reviewing the evidence while preparing for the appeal scheduled to start in April. When Mr Nichol had the handwriting on the Hickey "statement" examined, his suspicions appeared to have been borne out.

Molloy's interview was carried out by Detective Constable Graham Leeke and Detective Constable John Perkins with Detective Sergeant John Robbins sitting outside.

Mr Roberts said the Hickey statement was clearly a forgery. "The impressions in the body of the caption are in handwriting that certainly looks very similar to DC Leeke's and the impressions in the signature of Vincent Hickey, which is certainly not a genuine Vincent Hickey signature, are very like the handwriting of DC Perkins," Mr Roberts told the court.

The Crown accepted that there was no other sensible explanation that we can properly put forward other than Molloy's claim that his confession was improperly obtained.

Mr Perkins, who has since died, was disgraced in 1989 after he was caught falsifying a statement which failed in a court. In 1992, Merseyside police interviewed Mr Leeke and Mr Robbins, but they strenuously denied Molloy's allegations. One called them "absolute rubbish", the other "utter drivel".

It has taken 18 years for the men convicted of murdering Carl Bridgewater to prove their innocence. One of the four, Patrick Molloy, died in jail, disputing his conviction to the last. He has been deprived of the joy that the other three felt yesterday to breathe London air for the first time since James Callaghan was Prime Minister.

There can be few greater crimes that the State can commit than depriving innocent people of their liberty. These men have spent what should have been the best years of their lives in jail. Though no sum of money could ever wipe out the trauma that they have suffered, they should nonetheless be handsomely compensated.

But while Michael and Vincent Hickey and James Robinson readjust to the world of computers, video recorders, out-of town supermarkets and Tory governments, the Home Office should be examining how this wrongful conviction could have been allowed to stand for so long. It should also try to ensure that the policemen who secured the conviction are themselves brought to justice.

For the evidence which eventually led to the men's release showed tampering on a criminal scale. Mr Molloy always claimed that he had been tricked and intimidated into signing a false confession. He was shown a confession that one of the other co-accused, Vincent Hickey, had allegedly signed. The new evidence produced to the Court of Appeal showed that the Hickey "confession" had been forged by policemen from the No 4 Regional Crime Squad.

The evidence arose out of an "Esda" test on Mr Molloy's confession, which revealed the imprint of the forged signature written on the page above. Since Mr Hickey was several miles away in another police station, being questioned by different detectives, the confession could not have been genuine. Mr Molloy's claim that he had been shown this forgery was never believed in the many reviews of the case since 1978.

Tragically, the Hickey signature was discovered in 1990, but until two weeks ago nobody realised its significance. Great credit should go to Jim Nichol, solicitor to the men, who decided to go back over all the evidence in preparation for their latest appeal. Mr Molloy's confession was always crucial to the case against all three men since there was no forensic evidence linking them to the scene, no murder weapon and no witnesses.

The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, which included the detective who falsified Mr Hickey's signature, was wound up in 1989 after evidence came to light of other fabricated confessions and planted evidence in 23 cases during the 1980s. There is much less chance of such behaviour happening today, with the safeguards introduced by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. And although police forces still feel under pressure to secure convictions, particularly in child murders, the police culture is gradually changing. But the Government owes it to these three men ­ and to the memory of the fourth ­ to inquire into the circumstances of this miscarriage of justice. It must never be allowed to happen again.

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided no charges will be brought against 10 police officers accused of fabricating evidence against the Bridgewater Four.

When Michael Hickey, Vincent Hickey and Jim Robinson were freed by the Court of Appeal last year after 17 years in jail, the CPS was asked to investigate three separate allegations against the Staffordshire police detectives.

Merseyside police carried out the inquiry, but because there is no realistic prospect of any conviction from evidence gathered during the murder investigations of newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater, they decided not to press charges.

The fourth man convicted of killing Carl, Pat Molloy, died in prison in 1981.

The allegations focused on claims that an interview with Vincent Hickey was fabricated to induce Pat Molloy to sign a confession and that officers falsified evidence about a conversation during a car journey with Mr Molloy. Admissions by Michael Hickey were alleged to have been made up.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, said he appreciated the decision could be "difficult to understand". The CPS could only act if there was enough evidence to be put before a court to make a conviction realistic.

Michael Hickey's mother, Ann Whelan, described the decision as "horrendous, outrageous and deplorable".

"The CPS has made this decision public to tuck it away just before Christmas . . . We will not let it go unquestioned. We will fight on and will bring a judicial review if that's what it takes. I will not rest until the officers who wrongly put them behind bars are themselves in prison."

She said that her son, who has suffered mental health problems since his release, would only recover when those responsible for his imprisonment were punished.

Solicitor James Nichol, representing all three men, said the decision beggared belief and he would seek a judicial review. "I can understand the decision in relation to some, but there is clear evidence against at least two," he said.

"He's very up and down, sometimes very angry, sometimes hyper. He has broken down and cried, especially when he's talked to prisoners still inside. He's had terrible stomach cramps because the food is so rich after a prison diet. He hasn't slept in a bed yet, in fact he's hardly slept at all and he's asked me to remove the light in his room - he slept with a light on in his cell for ten years. He wouldn't travel in a train carriage because it would be too claustrophobic after the cell and he says he gets lost in the house because there are so many rooms." That is how Ann Whelan, the mother of Michael Hickey, described her son three days after his release as one of the wrongfully convicted killers of the newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater.

The night of the men's release was, understandably, one of euphoria. Nearly 19 years after their imprisonment the three surviving members of the "Bridgewater Four" - Vincent and Michael Hickey and Jim Robinson - last week celebrated with their families and campaigners at the London Irish Centre in Camden Town. But even as the men began the renewal of relationships ended so abruptly with their arrests in 1978, there were reminders around them that their ordeal was not over.

Among the well-wishers was a man who five years previously had celebrated his own release at the same venue: Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six. Hill has described his life after release as even more traumatic than the years of false imprisonment. He cites the lack of counselling and rehabilitation; the delay and inadequacy of compensation awards; the refusal to re-open the cases (thus fuelling whispering campaigns that the miscarriage-of-justice victim was really guilty) and the fact that those responsible for the false imprisonments are not, in turn, brought to justice. Hill believes the few reforms set in train as a result of a Royal Commission set up after his own case are "just papering over the cracks".

The most immediate consideration for the three Bridgewater men is counselling. The innumerable disappointments over the 18 years have led to prolonged periods of depression for all of them and, in the case of Vincent Hickey, a suicide bid. After his 89-day prison rooftop protest in 1983-84, Michael Hickey was so mentally and physically exhausted he spent the next ten years in Ashworth mental hospital.

"If there is a hell," said Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four, soon after his own release, "it's being in prison and knowing you're innocent." Yet while the need for counselling is recognised for the guilty lifer out on release, it is not offered to the innocent former prisoner. Jill Morrell, a leading campaigner for the Bridgewater men, believes their need for counselling is in some ways greater than that of the Beirut hostages. "It's coming to terms with the wasted years that are hardest. Michael, for instance, has spent half his life in prison - he's lost those years and can never get them back," she says.

After examining four members of the Birmingham Six for their compensation application, Adrian Grounds, a psychiatrist at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge, likened their chronic trauma to that of war veterans or prisoners of war and concluded that the men would need many years of regular counselling to help them readjust. They received none.

Paddy Hill describes a sense of alienation, swiftly changing moods, of feeling lost and isolated. "I spend half my time staring at the wall, wishing I was back in prison," he says.

For Eddie Browning, whose conviction for the murder of Maria Wilkes was quashed in 1994, the effects have been even more disturbing. Eddie's wife Julie campaigned for him during his seven years of imprisonment, while trying to raise two children on benefits. Now, after two-and-a-half years of struggling to keep their marriage intact, they are to divorce. Julie says she was unable to cope with Eddie's mood swings, and believes the lack of an outlet for his suppressed anger has been central to his problems.

The Bridgewater men are determined that those they see as responsible for their false imprisonment are brought to justice. But the portents are not promising. In the 15 miscarriage cases in which a police officer has been accused of fabricating evidence at an appeal court, not a single officer has been convicted or even disciplined. In the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six cases, actions against the officers criticised in the appeal court were eventually dismissed on the grounds of prejudicial media coverage.

Julie Browning believes the failure of the action against the police in her husband's case was a key factor in his psychological deterioration. "When the police in Eddie's case got off, he put his hand through the door and sat there, crying like a baby for hours."

A few months ago, according to Mrs Browning, her husband finally buckled under the strain, hitting her and attacking their furniture with a power saw. Soon after, horrified by his behaviour, he put himself into a psychiatric unit.

Even the most ordinary, domestic aspects of life after release will create problems for the Bridgewater men. Unlike the guilty lifer whose release is planned by the probation service to help reacclimatisation and who is given assistance with housing, the benefit system and general life skills, the three men will have to depend wholly on their families. Paul May, who set up the Bridgewater Four campaign in London and led the campaigns for the Birmingham Six and Judith Ward, says the obstacles they face are daunting: "Because they have not kept up National Insurance contributions in prison it is very difficult to get benefits. Hugh Callaghan of the Birmingham Six, for instance, gets a lower pension for this reason. They may not have an address to obtain bank or electricity accounts. And because no provision is made for housing needs, most find themselves homeless after release. Nor will there be help with employment."

For Judith Ward, released in 1992 after her conviction for the M62 coach bombing was quashed, finding a job has been the worst problem. She worked in Ireland before her conviction and had no National Insurance number. Now she cannot sign on or obtain employment, so she has "harrassed" the Home Office for five years to rectify the matter, with no success.

In high-profile miscarriage cases, compensation is inevitably the subject of widespread media speculation. But the Bridgewater men are likely to face a long wait. The Brownings, Judith Ward and the Birmingham Six all still await their full payments. Paddy Hill says he received £200,000 in interim payments but is contesting the final £116,000. If the figures seem high, the need for a mortgageless house or flat accounts for a large chunk. Compensation is calculated largely on loss of earnings, not loss of liberty, which campaigners say would be fairer. Nor do the awards compensate for the suffering of the prisoners' families, which, in the Carl Bridgewater case, have included long-term intimidation, beatings, bullying at school for the children and a general atmosphere of hostility to all the relatives, including the family of Pat Molloy, who died in prison in 1981.

The experiences of the previous miscarriage victims have at least given the families of the Hickeys and Jim Robinson some warning of what to expect; and with Hubert Spencer, the original Bridgewater suspect, already in the frame, it may be difficult for the police not to re-open the case. But the men's unexpected sudden release has meant that the families are only now making preparations for counselling. For Ann Whelan, Michael Hickey's mother, the need is urgent. "Before he was released Michael said he didn't know whether he would be 17 or 35 when he walked free [he was 17 when convicted]; and I think he still doesn't know. People say it's wonderful that they are free, and it is, but in a sense they are still not free."