Danny McNamee: new evidence casts doubt on the "master bombmaker" tag

McNamee Case Referred to Court of Appeal

Karamjit Singh of the CCRC: "We are simply the catalyst for this case to be looked at again"

Four soldiers were killed in the blast. In 1987, Mr McNamee was convicted at the Old Bailey for conspiracy to cause explosions. A 1991 attempt to win a Court of Appeal Hearing was denied.

The decision of the CCRC - created to look at alleged miscarriages of justice - was welcomed by Mr McNamee's solicitor, Gareth Peirce, whose previous legal victories include securing the release of the Guildford Four. She praised the Commission for its "intelligence, imagination, efficiency and energy." Later, she said that the referral had only been possible thanks to a "miraculous series of chances".

Campaigner Paul May insists that Danny McNamee is innocent

At his trial, Mr McNamee was portrayed as the "master bombmaker", responsible for the Hyde Park explosion and other outrages. However, his defence challenged the validity of fingerprint evidence connecting him with two concealed caches of IRA weapons discovered in woods in Berkshire.

McNamee arrives at the Old Bailey for his 1987 trial

Mr McNamee acknowledged that the fingerprints found on the tape attached to the circuit boards in a timing device found in one cache - identical to the tape used in the Hyde Park device - could have been his. But he argued that the tape was commonly used at an electronics factory in Ireland where he had once worked, and that therefore his contact with it was entirely innocent.

Mr McNamee's defence also contested whether another print, discovered on a battery found in the debris of the Hyde Park blast, was also his.

Crucially, his defence was unaware that many more prints had been discovered belonging to Desmond Ellis, a self-confessed IRA member who had been extradited to the UK from Ireland to stand trial for a series of bombings. The case against Ellis collapsed when his defence successfully argued that he had already saved six years of an eight year sentence in Ireland for explosives offences relating to the bombing equipment found in Berkshire, aided by photos which showed that the equipment was indeed the same.

The aftermath of the 1982 Hyde Park bombing

The connection with Ellis was only made when Ms Pierce, who had represented him, took on Mr McNamee's case. In a submission to the Home Office, she pointed out because there were so of McNamee's prints on the equipment, there were no grounds for describing him as the "master bombmaker".

Mr McNamee has vociferously argued that he deplores violence - his father died in a bomb explosions and two of his cousins were alleged informers who were shot by the IRA.

His case has attracted the support of a number of celebrities, including Eddie Izzard and Sean Hughes. Campaigners claim that the real Hyde Park bomber is a known terrorist who is living in Dublin.