A Clonmel man at the centre of one of the longest-running miscarriages of justice cases in Britain is celebrating the first anniversary of his release from prison by setting a date for his first visit to his home town in thirty years.
A year ago today, Mr Frank Johnson walked through the gates of Swaleside Prison in Kent after 26 years behind bars.
His release came after the British Court of Appeal ruled that his conviction in 1976 for the murder of his friend and employer, Mr John Sheridan, in February 1975 was unsafe.
Now 67 years old, Mr Johnson, who is originally from Oliver Plunkett Terrace, is planning to visit Clonmel for the Fleadh Cheoil at the end of August.Speaking from his home in Leyton, east London, he said he was "disgusted" by the ruling of Lord Justice Longmore, one of three judges who heard the appeal, that the conviction was unsafe because he was suffering from a mental disability at the time of his trial.
It's a ruling that he and his supporters have totally rejected. They have accused the Court of Appeal of taking the easy way out and have interpreted the judge's decision as an attempt to claim that he was really guilty, and that he had only been freed on a technicality. Mr Johnson said that if he knew why he was being released he would have stayed in prison. Earlier this year he received an interim compensation payment of £100,000 from the British Home Office. It has even been suggested that he might eventually receive a total of £1 million.
His initial compensation payment has been placed in a trust, the trustees of which are Mr Billy Power of the Birmingham Six, his long-time friend and supporter; and Ms Sally Mulready, an Irish community officer and locally-elected councillor in Hackney, east London.
"However I'd return the money if the truth came out," he said. Mr Johnson is particularly angry that a statement made by Mr Sheridan before he died in hospital, which exonerated him from any blame in the attack on the newsagents when Mr Sheridan was doused with petrol and set alight, wasn't heard at his appeal.
For years the police had maintained that Mr Sheridan had been too ill to make a statement before he died.
This statement, which said that Mr Johnson had come to his rescue and extinguished the flames, was only discovered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission when it was requested to re-examine the case by well-known human rights solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce. The Commission subsequently referred the case to the Court of Appeal.