The true story behind A Great British Injustice: The Maguire Story
The lives of an ordinary Northern Irish family in London were turned upside down when they were wrongly convicted of the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings of December 1974
THE MAGUIRES were an ordinary Northern Irish family living in London in the 1970s.
But their lives turned extraordinary when they were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for making the bombs used in the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings.
What is the real story behind the BBC documentary?
Originally aired on 19 November, the hour-long documentary provided interviews of everyone involved in one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
In December 1974, Annie, her late husband Patrick and son's Vincent and Patrick - then aged 16 and 13, were arrested.
Along with four other adults, they were held on suspicion of involvement in the Guildford IRA bombings.
The four were all convicted on the basis of false confessions extracted after physical abuse and threats by Surrey police while detained under anti-terrorism.
Among the coerced confessions was the assertion that the Maguire household was a bomb factory.
Despite intense police searches, no bomb-making equipment was ever found.
The Maguire Seven were charged based on the discovery of what was claimed to be the explosive substance nitro-glycerine on their hands.
How long were they in jail for?
All seven were convicted, with Annie and her husband jailed for 14 years each.
Their sons Patrick and Vincent were given sentences of four and five years respectively.
Anne Maguire's brother Sean Smyth, her brother-in-law Guiseppe Conlon and family friend Patrick O'Neill all received 12-year-sentences.
The Maguire Seven all served their sentences except for Conlon, who died in prison in 1980 before the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction.