Bridgewater case prisoner in hospital

(First Edition)

ONE of the three men serving life for the murder of the newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater was in hospital last night after being found in his bed bleeding from razor injuries. Vincent Hickey, 38, was under surveillance in the prison hospital at Winson Green jail, Birmingham.

The incident came eight days after Kenneth Clarke, the Home Secretary, had refused to refer the Bridgewater case back to the Court of Appeal.

Last November Hickey was moved out of the Long Lartin top security prison near Evesham, in Hereford and Worcester, for treatment for a nervous breakdown at the Reaside Clinic, a secure unit in Birmingham. But last week he was moved back to Long Lartin. On Friday night he was discovered bleeding from an injury to his arm.

Last night his mother, Ann Skett, said: 'He has tried everything to prove his innocence. This, I believe, was the last resort. He has told me many times that he is not going to spend the rest of his life in jail for a crime he did not commit.'