RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2021 :: RMTnews

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2021 :: RMTnews was jailed for three years. "My thoughts today are with my friend and comrade Des Warren. I'm just sorry he is not here today so we can celebrate, but I'm sure he's with us in spirit," he said. Des Warren received a three-year sentence and he was regularly made to drink a cocktail of tranquillisers while in prison which led to Parkinson’s disease and his death in 2004. Many of those convicted also found that upon their release they had been blacklisted and were unable to work. For nearly half a century, the families of the convicted men, backed by the trade union movement, have campaigned for their convictions to be quashed. Speaking at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Lord Justice Fulford said: "These 14 appeals against conviction are allowed across the three trials and on every extant count which the 14 appellants faced. It would not be in the public interest to order a retrial". In its written ruling, the Court of Appeal allowed the 14 appellants' appeals on the grounds that original witness statements had been destroyed. In June 1972, trade unionists called the first-ever national builders' strike in protest against pay, unjust employment practices and dangerous conditions on sites and strikers demonstrated in Shrewsbury and Telford. None of the demonstrators were arrested that day but five months later the picketers were charged and subsequently convicted on trumped up charges. Lord Justice Fulford wrote: "If the destruction of the handwritten statements had been revealed to the appellants at the time of the trial, this issue could have been comprehensively investigated with the witnesses when they gave evidence, and the judge would have been able to give appropriate directions. "We have no doubt that if that had happened, the trial process would have ensured fairness to the accused. Self- evidently, that is not what occurred. "By the standards of today, what occurred was unfair to the extent that the verdicts cannot be upheld,” he said. Lawyers had also argued the broadcast of a highly emotive anti-communist documentary during the trials was "deeply prejudicial", but the Court of Appeal dismissed the claim that the Red under the Bed documentary might have made the verdicts unsafe. Arthur Murray, who was convicted of affray and unlawful assembly and sentenced to six months, said: "We were innocent all along, yet it has taken us nearly 50 years to clear our names. "Sadly, my mother and four of my siblings have passed away without knowing that we were innocent. "Serious questions need to be asked about the role of the building industry bosses in our convictions and the highest offices of government who all had a hand in our trial and conviction. "Make no mistake, our convictions were a political witch-hunt,” he said. Mr Tomlinson said: "We were brought to trial at the apparent behest of the building industry bosses, the Conservative government and ably supported by the secret state. "This was a political trial not just of me, and the Shrewsbury pickets - but was a trial of the trade union movement,” he said. Terry Renshaw who was convicted of unlawful assembly paid tribute to the campaign's researcher, Eileen Turnbull, who worked "tirelessly" to obtain "crucial evidence". She uncovered a document in the National Archives which was part of the prosecution papers and revealed for the first time that police had destroyed some of the original witness statements. "It's been 47 years I'm just so emotional. I didn't think it would hit me like this. I am no longer a criminal,” he said. JUSTICE AT LAST: (Left to right) Mark Turnbull, Terry Renshaw, Harry Chadwick, Eileen Turnbull, John McKinsie Jones with wife Rita McKinsie Jones and lawyer Jamie Potter, outside The Royal Courts Of Justice, London, in February before the hearing in the Court of Appeal for the Shrewsbury 24 which has now overturned the convictions.