​John McManus, a co-founder of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation, pays tribute to the late Gerry Conlon

When people first met Gerry Conlon and myself, they assumed that we had known each other for decades when, in fact, I only knew Gerry for eight years.

I like to think this is because we were so at ease in each other’s company.

But it wasn’t until May 2006, at another sad occasion, the funeral of Richard McIlkenny, that Gerry walked into my life.

Gerry knew of me and the work I was doing with Paddy Hill in setting up the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO), so being a friend of Paddy’s opened up a trust that Gerry normally would have been very wary of.

Gerry at that time was living on his own in Cornwall - as he said himself, he was a hermit. Nobody, except a handful of people, knew who he was.

The anonymity was all he could handle. His life since release at that point had been a spiral downwards of madness and mayhem, drink and drugs, tears and breakdowns.

Like all innocent victims I have met, and particularly the long term prisoner, their sudden return into a world that has changed beyond comprehension is too much to handle.

Releasing innocent people in this manner is a cruel act of revenge for being innocent and shows the crown/system up to the world.

Some would argue that when Gerry was released the authorities didn’t know enough about the impact of sudden release, but within two years of Gerry’s release, the government sent Terry Waites and John MacCarthy, after five years of wrongful incarceration, to RAF Lyneham for 16 weeks of debriefing and counselling, along with their families and close friends.

I haven’t just lost a comrade or a friend, I’ve lost a brother and Gerry will not only live on in my heart and mind, but in my actions

Not only was this not offered to Gerry, or Paddy, it is still to this day not offered to innocent people on their release. Let’s not forget the name Sean Hodgson, who died in 2012 only three years after his release, after 27 years of wrongful imprisonment.

All of the innocent victims of our judiciary that I have worked with have been diagnosed with the most severe form of post traumatic stress disorder.

By the time I met Gerry he had been released for 17 years, was coming off the drugs (he had been self medicating since his release and had formed a bad, and very expensive habit) and had no money and was living off hand-outs from friends.

When Paddy Hill and myself went down to Plymouth he told us that he was having suicidal thoughts and that he was breaking down all the time in tears.

He was, he said, in a hole that we helped him climb out of and by the time we had left to go back to Scotland, Gerry had decided to move back to Belfast to be closer to his mum and sister Ann.

He also wanted to start campaigning with us and use the time left to let people know what happened to him, to try and prevent it from happening to anybody else.

It wasn’t long before we were lecturing at universities or addressing union meetings all over the UK.

Anytime he came to Glasgow, he stayed at mine, and one of the thing that really brought us together was our love of music, especially when he found my vinyl collection.

We soon found out we had similar taste, though he was a bit more hippy and I was a bit more punk.

I had the pleasure of introducing him to the Alabama 3, who had been working with MOJO.

Well, Gerry loved the Alabama 3, their music, their personalities but most importantly their politics - their music spoke to him about equality, love and injustice; and he ended up on one of their tracks, a cover of an old Johnny cash song, aptly called Leave That Junk Alone.

I also had the wonderful good fortune of seeing Gerry find two years of happiness with his mum, Sarah, before she sadly passed away in 2008 and I know how bittersweet it was for him to lose his mum only to meet up with his beloved Alison again.

We were invited to Glastonbury’s Leftfield stage and on arrival we were asked if would be okay with sharing a campaign table with one of the unions.

We told them this would be an honour, especially when we found out that it was the RMT. No disrespect to any other unions, but it was Phil McGarry and Geoff Revel of the old National Union of Railwaymen who were the first people to campaign for Gerry and the Guildford Four, along with a handful of family members in the first few years of their sentence.

Talking politics and music, Gerry was in his element. It was at the RMT conference in 2009 that we were to meet up with Chris Cain of the Maritime Union of Australia, and his wife Anna. Soon Gerry, Paddy and myself were flown to the other side of the world to campaign about the treatment of innocent people on their release.

It was on the tours of Australia that I really got to know my Gerry. The side he showed was not the face he looked at in the mirror. If he had two sides, it was only to protect us from the horrors he endured and would only reveal it when he spoke out about the brutality, the inhumanity that was done to him, his co accused and his family.

He tried to hide these demons from the ones he loved. But he brought these horrors to light when he spoke with a passion that only those who lived through it can.

All over Australia, we spoke to hundreds of packed halls, union meetings, on site meetings and social clubs.

Everywhere, we got the same reaction - no one would move for up to three hours as Paddy and Gerry told them of their trauma, of living their nightmares, why they couldn’t sleep, or when they did, why they catnapped like soldiers in the trenches, to avoid the horrors of the past.

Gerry’s voice would break as he described the death of his father. Everyone would be in tears - it was impossible not to be.

But it wasn’t just themselves they would talk about - everywhere we went Gerry and Paddy would speak out on behalf of the Aboriginal communities.

I am a very lucky man to have experienced these events with Gerry Conlon, to have known him for the last eight years, probably the happiest years of his adult life. This brings me joy in this dark time.

We can’t thank his partner Alison enough for the stability she gave him, she was his rock and his darling daughter Sarah, the joy of his life that he never knew he had. To see him have these last six years with her is so touching it breaks my heart.

Gerry was taken too early, killed, ultimately, by the lack of help on release. But Gerry knew at the same time he was lucky to be alive, and his campaigning would have made his father, Guiseppe, very proud.

I haven’t just lost a comrade or a friend, I’ve lost a brother and Gerry will not only live on in my heart and mind, but in my actions.

Now that his light has gone out, we will all have to do that little bit extra to shine the torch against injustices, where ever they happen, in memory of my dear friend Gerry Conlon.

John McManus is a co-founder of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation Scotland.