Telford pair deny involvement in hanging deaths of McGowan men

Two men who have been identified by people in Telford as suspects in the mysterious hangings of two black men have claimed that they were not responsible for the deaths.

In a newspaper interview published yesterday, Rob Boyle and Eddie Solon admitted they had been involved in several clashes with Asian and black people in the Shropshire town during the last 10 years.

Mr Boyle, who is banned from every nightclub in Shropshire, said he had been involved in confrontations with Harold "Errol" McGowan, who was found hanged in a house in Telford last July. Mr McGowan's nephew, Jason, 20, who had been investigating his uncle's death, was found hanging from railings on New Year's Day. The McGowan family believe the men were murdered.

Mr Solon, 32, said in the interview: "There's a terrible amount of bad blood between us and the McGowans."

But the men said they were terrified that they were being made "scapegoats" for the two deaths. Mr Boyle said he thought he would be arrested "just to keep people happy".

The pair said they became friends 10 years ago during racial clashes in Telford. Mr Solon told The Mail on Sunday: "There were gangs of Asian youths roaming Wellington [in Telford] with baseball bats in their cars looking for white people. The police did nothing, so we stuck up for ourselves."

Peter Hampson, the Chief Constable of West Mercia Police, apologised to the McGowan family last week, for the "less than satisfactory" service they had been given during initial investigations into the deaths.

The McGowans, who had been subjected to a sustained campaign of racial harassment including death threats against Errol, claim that the police failed to take seriously the possibility that they were murdered.

The family said last night that it did not wish to comment on the claims of the two men.