Juror urges release of Bridgewater Three

Pressure on Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, to re-open the Carl Bridgewater murder case mounted yesterday when a second juror, who convicted four men of the killing 16 years ago, says she now believes they are innocent, writes Heather Mills.

Lucinda Graham, who was 19 at the time of the trial, came forward after a BBC Rough Justice programme, revealed that a key prosecutor in the case had voiced his concerns that vital fingerprint evidence had not been disclosed at the men's trial.

Yesterday she said she would now back the campaign to free the men, after feeling that she and her fellow jurors had been wrongly denied the full picture, during the men's trial in 1979.

Tim O'Malley, the jury foreman, has expressed his doubts over the verdict, saying: "The prosecution knew there was vital forensic evidence and they kept it away from the defence. You feel cheated and you feel deceived by that."

Thirteen-year-old Carl was shot dead when he apparently interrupted burglars as he delivered newspapers to an isolated Staffordshire farmhouse in 1978. However, Michael Hickey, 33, his cousin Vincent Hickey, 41, and James Robinson, 61, have always protested their innocence. They were convicted largely on the evidence of Patrick Molloy, who was found guilty of manslaughter. He died in prison in 1981.