Stolen Years

by Paul Hill

Paul Hill is one of the real Guildford Four. Since his release, in 1989, real life has taken a turn that no screenwriter could have dreamed up. In the best Hollywood rags-to-riches tradition, he's become a star and married a Kennedy... The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were the collective names of two groups of innocent people whose convictions in English courts in 1975 and 1976 for the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974 were eventually quashed after long campaigns for justice. The Guildford Four were convicted of bombings carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the Maguire Seven were convicted of handling explosives found during the investigation into the bombings. Both groups' convictions were eventually declared "incorrect and unsatisfactory" and reversed in 1989 and 1991 respectively after they had served 15–16 years in prison. Not one policeman has been yet convicted of the torture, corruption and crimes against the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven.

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 1990

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had been aware of Paul's story due to following the Kennedys. I was interested in hearing his own words about it. Unfortunately, I think, they were mainly the ghostwriter's. I had just finished reading Gerry Conlon's version of the incident (no ghostwriter) and there was much more soul in it. When you read about his childhood in Belfast, you felt like you were there. When he described his beatings and torture by the police, you were an observer. His use of Irish verbiage made you feel like you were almost going to have an accent yourself. It all made it much more real.
Although there were some portions of this book that did the same, mostly to me it read like an unemotional factual reading. A lot of it repeating dry court documents.
I would like to know what his life was like after all of this. How he adapted to freedom, how he met and married Courtney Kennedy, the birth of their daughter. I wonder how he feels after surviving 15 years of prison and all that went along with it, but he survived, when his daughter, about the same age as he was when he went into prison, and had comparatively less drama, could not survive?

[ParisianIrish · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good account of a man wrongly imprisoned by the British judicial system and his fight against that system, the institutions and his own demons.
A unique and remarkable story of a man's life taken from him. You can feel the bitterness, anger, rage and also hopelessness in the writing. I enjoyed reading this.