Wrongful imprisonment of an Irish Communist.

  November 2022 it was fifty year since the wrongful imprisonment of Noel Jenkinson, an Irish Communist sentenced to life imprisonment with little or no evidence against him other than his left-wing political beliefs.

The charges against him was the Official IRA bomb explosion at the headquarters of British Parachute Regiment in Aldershot on 22, February 1972. The prosecution did not prove that Noel had ever been in Aldershot: Judge Sir Sebag Shaw said they did not need to.

Noel Jenkinson was born on 22 December 1929 into a commutable Protestant background in Loughcrew, County Meath. Like many of his generation in the 1950s, he emigrated to London in search of employment where he became involved in the trade union movement while working with London transport. In 1964 he was elected as secretary and shop steward of the Highgate Branch of the Transport and General Worker’s Union.

 As well of his membership of the Transport and General Workers Union he was also a long- time member of the Communist Party of Great Britian. Despite misgivings Noel resigned from Party in 1963 after he was disciplined for speaking on a platform in support of the Cuban Revolution. He later became involved with the breakaway Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity. What’s more, when the North of Ireland erupted in 1969 Noel joined the Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign in London and became its chairperson.

Following the Aldershot explosion police carried out raids of Irish Political activist’s across London. Noel was arrested after a receipt from an Aldershot shop was found in his home during a search. At the committal hearing it was revealed the receipt belonged to Detective Chief Inspector Smith, who accidentally lost it.  Judge Sebag Shaw made constant interjections during the cross-examination of the defendant, questioning him about his support for Communism, how many times he had visited communist Cuba, and what his views were on capitalism. This took place before a jury in Winchester Crown Court, a staunchly conservative city. The Judge passed a life sentence, with a recommendation that he spend at least thirty years in prison.

 Just four years later, on 9 October 1976, Noel Jenkinson died though medical neglect at HM Prison Leicester. He was laid to rest at Deansgrange Cemetery, Co, Dublin.