Unlikely enemy of the state

PROFILE
ALASTAIR Logan LL 13 doesn't look like an enemy of the State. He is a genial, bespectacled man whose middle-age paunch k beginning to peep over his belt. I lis days are usually spent in leafy Guildford wading through the paperwork in his solicitor's office of routine divorce and conveyancing cases.
His grandfather was once the Garter King of Arms, appointed by Buckingham Palace and entrusted with protecting the nation's heraldic tradition.
Nevertheless, there are those who regard Mr Logan as a dangerous man, partly because he continues to claim that two of his clients, Carole Richardson and Patrick Armstrong, had no part in the IRA Guildford pub bombings in 1974.
"I got the case because I was the only solicitor around who said they'd take it. 1 knew nothing about Northern Ireland then. I wasn't even sure if it was a proper part of the United Kingdom or anything."
Alastair Logan still works from his Surrey office, but he has become famous on both sides of the Irish Sea for his championing of the Guildford Four (the other two convicted, Paul Hill and Gerard Conlon, have different solicitors, although Logan has represented all of them in the past).
"I knew right from the start, before the trial, they were innocent. Since then I've come into contact with real terrorists during my work and I'm even more convinced my clients couldn't have done it."
The appeal court rejected the four's claims of innocence in 1977, and Logan has not been paid for what was for a long lime a one-man campaign to have them freed, as the case was officially closed.
"I don't count it up, it's not all logged down in minutes spent working on the case in a ledger somewhere it was just something someone had to do," he said with a shrug, but admits that the "dark years" between 1977 and 1985 were "a struggle."
"It was very difficult to keep the thing alive because no-one wanted to know. Sometimes journalists would want to interview me about other cases, and 1 would have to say: 'Okay, but only it you listen to me first about the Guildford case.' It occasionally worked, and some were interested. When the First Tuesday documentary team got involved, it really began to take off. It's a fairly complicated case which can't be explained in a few sentences of newsprint and it works better on television."
Over the last four years, dignitaries including Cardinal Hume, Archbishop Runcie, Lords Scarman and Devlin and former Home Secretaries Merlyn Rees and Roy Jenkins have all joined in the call for a review of the convictions.
The tour were found guilty of causing explosions in two Guildford pubs on the same night which resulted in the death of five people.
"Once the cardinal became involved, someone with impeccable credentials, it was obvious the case wasn't just being publicised for political reasons. Still, I shouldn't have had to spend years guarding the fluttering flame in the hope that I could influence important people."
His doggedness also helped to earn him a reputation for fair play in other IRA trials, at least among Republicans. It also made the authorities suspicious.
"I've been told there's an MI5 file on me, and I have been followed from time to time. They usually use me as a target to train the new recruits, but you can easily spot them by the PC Plod-type shoes," he laughed. Perhaps more worrying have been the nocturnal break-ins at his office (nothing destroyed, but various papers moved around) and the death threat from the National Front.
Atastair Logan has learned a lot about the various forces at work in the north of Ireland since he took on the case. "Maybe I should have been more aware than 1 was my grandmother was from Galway, and her father was Sir Robert McCall, a barrister who was a long-standing friend of Edward Carson. I've come a long way from the early days, though. When I first wanted to make contact with the IRA about the case, to ask if they could help, 1 read that Cardinal Conway had offered to mediate in talks with them. 1 wrote to the cardinal asking to be put in touch with the IRA. I soon got a letter back from his secretary telling me the cardinal did not keep that sort of company."
He is now preparing for the appeal hearing announced by the Home Secretary last month. Proceedings should begin at the Old Bailey in about a year.
"Whatever happens, even if the four aren't released, the case won't go away. We'll he back, and back again for as long as it takes to get justice."
Brian Dooley