Robert Adams
Robert Adams was convicted of the murder of William Spring, who was found dead in the kitchen of a derilict house in Belfast, having been shot in the head. Adams was 16 when interviewed and 17 when convicted. He was convicted primarily on the basis of confession evidence having been interviewed by the police over 1.5 days. Police records indicated that at other times he had been “talking” to police officers while not being interviewed. His father was present at his final interview where he made a confession statement. The conviction was quashed on the basis of the unreliability of the confession. Adams had been intensively interrogated and denied the support of an adult. There were inconsistencies between his confession and verifiable facts and evidence of re-writing notes.
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< Back to Case Search < Back to Overview Graph- Offence: Murder
- Jurisdiction: Northern Ireland
- County: Unknown
- Ethnicity: Unknown
- Gender: M
- Years in prison: 9
- Offence convicted of: Murder; false imprisonment; GBH
- Year of crime: 1976
- Year of initial conviction: 1976
- Year conviction was overturned: 2006
- Age when imprisoned: Unknown
- CCRC Referral: Y
- Tried with others: N
- Link to full case: Not available
- Type of fresh evidence at appeal: Evidence undermining the reliability of a confession
- Compensation: Unknown
- Crown argued case at CofA: No
- Retrial: No
- Previous appeals: Unsuccessful application for leave to appeal in 1979