Eddie Guilfoyle’s murder conviction will be explored in new Channel 4 documentary
Eddie Guilfoyle, who served 18 years behind bars for the murder of his pregnant wife (Image: Pennsylvania)
The murder of Paula Guilfoyle is one of the most notorious the Wirral has ever seen. The expectant mother, who was eight and a half months pregnant at the time, was found in the garage of her Upton home with a written note in the kitchen on the evening of June 4, 1992.
Her husband Eddie had earlier returned from work to find her missing. Believing the note meant she was leaving him, he returned with his parents and brother-in-law Paul Caddick, a police sergeant, and discovered her body. Ms Guilfoyle’s death was initially treated as a suicide and experts confirmed the note was written by her.
Relations were strained but Mrs Guilfoyle’s family were convinced she had not committed suicide. Four days later, Guilfoyle was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife. He was later charged and found guilty the following year and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The case against Guilfoyle was that he persuaded his pregnant partner to write her own suicide note before forcing her up the stairs and placing a noose around her neck. But the media, campaigners and Guilfoyle himself have long argued that vital evidence was withheld from his defense team.
Guilfoyle served 18 years in prison before his release in 2010. He continued to deny any involvement in his wife’s murder and repeatedly attempted to challenge his conviction in the Court of Appeal.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), an independent body that reviews potential miscarriages of justice, inherited a review application from the Home Office in March 1997. The review uncovered new expert evidence regarding Ms Guilfoyle’s social and psychological factors that may have contributed to her “suicide”.
Eddie and Paula Guilfoyle on their wedding day
The prosecution’s expert witness also changed his opinion about the probable cause of death based on information that was not available at the time of his testimony. The CCRC handed down a verdict in March 1999, but the Court of Appeal upheld the jury’s original decision.
Guilfoyle made further allegations to the CCRC regarding the quality of the police investigation; destroying or obstructing evidence, and preserving a crime scene.
A CCRC spokesman told the ECHO this week: “The CCRC took the case to the Court of Appeal in 1999, but the conviction was later upheld. Additional applications filed in 2003 and 2010 did not result in the case being referred to the Court of Appeal.”
Although the CCRC refused to refer the case for trial, campaigners and the media provided new evidence of the conviction. In 2012, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) released police records which said police had lost evidence since the day Mrs Guilfoyle was found hanged.
This included officers walking through the scene, cutting up the body and destroying the rope. The Times reported that these serious errors were due to Merseyside Police’s policy of favoring the coroner’s office at the scene of a sudden death.
The Times also reported that jurors at Guilfoyle’s trial were told she was happy and would never have killed herself. But her diary, which was only revealed to his lawyers after a 20-year delay, suggests she had previously attempted suicide.
Eddie Guilfoyle during a press conference in the House of Lords after he was released from prison after 18 years (Image: Max Nash/PA Wire)
The Appeal, which supported Guilfoyle in his fight, added: “Understanding of antenatal depression has changed significantly since 1993. During Eddie’s trial, suicide during pregnancy was misunderstood. Today’s understanding is that pregnancy itself does not protect against suicide. Paula herself described that “the baby was born when I am in the worst state of my life.”
The Guardian reported that Merseyside Police withheld its internal report from both the court and the Police Complaints Authority review. According to the police report, Chief Superintendent Tom Baxter “considered it inappropriate to provide a copy of the report” to Guilfoyle’s legal team ahead of the trial.
Detective Sup Baxter was involved in the investigation of Peter Sullivan, whose conviction for rape and murder in Birkenhead was overturned last year after he spent 38 years in prison. Mr Sullivan’s case has been called the worst miscarriage of justice this country has ever seen.
Guilfoyle’s cause has attracted significant support. Alison Halford, who was assistant chief constable of Merseyside Police at the time of Ms Guilfoyle’s death, has previously called for senior-level intervention to expose alleged wrongdoing within her force in the early 1990s.
She previously told the ECHO: “Eddie Guilfoyle’s life has been ruined. Merseyside Police lied, lied and hid evidence. “Someone needs to be held accountable…Eddie is innocent. I can’t understand how he was convicted – he’s not a murderer.”
Lord David Hunt, who was MP for the Guilfoyles at the time, also called the verdict “one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history”. He added: “This is becoming a long-running epic of cover-up after cover-up.”
Eddie Guilfoyle
Former army medic Guilfoyle’s most influential defender was his late sister Sue Caddick, who added: “This was a huge cover-up by Merseyside Police. I don’t know how we can piece this poor guy together, how much damage he did and how bad he got.”
“I don’t see how we can bring back old Eddie. He is no longer the same person who was taken from me many years ago. It is damaged beyond repair.”
And Guilfoyle himself said: “I did not kill Paula, I did not kill my (unborn) child, and the police know it. I have nothing to be afraid of the truth, other people are afraid of it. It’s morally cruel, it’s always on my mind.”
Eddie Guilfoyle pictured being kissed by his late sister Susan Caddick (Image: Max Nash/PA Wire)
“I told the truth from day one. I want the public to know the truth. What was done to me could be done to anyone else in this country. I don’t want this to be done to anyone else. The life I had is gone. Somewhere, somehow I have to find a new life, and I don’t know where to start.”
However, Mrs. Guilfoyle’s family always maintained that the expectant mother’s husband was to blame. They believed he had concocted a plot to keep the house and move in with his girlfriend after his wife left.
Mrs Guilfoyle’s sister told the ECHO after his release: “As far as I am concerned he is 100% guilty and always will be. We have suffered through this and now we will have to go through it all again, just before Christmas. He will be able to join his family, but my sister will never be able to do this with our family again.”
Channel 4 was the first to call Guilfoyle’s murder a miscarriage of justice, producing a documentary in the 90s that said the investigation had been botched. And later tonight Channel 4 will return to the case in a new documentary, Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, in which Guilfoyle, his legal experts and psychologists find out about the case and whether he has exhausted all possibilities.