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Published: 23rd June, 2011
EXCLUSIVE by TOM FOOT

HE lost his childhood to a shameful miscarriage of justice. But no one can take the youthful flair for art out of Patrick Maguire.

He was just 13 years old in 1974 when he and his family – later known as the “Maguire 7” – were wrongly arrested in their Kilburn home, charged and found guilty of manufacturing explosives used by the IRA in the Guildford pub bombings. “That was the moment my childhood ended,” he said.

The evidence against the Quintin Kynaston schoolboy – nitro-glycerine residue, used for making bombs, found under his fingernails – was later found to have come from playing cards. Mr Maguire’s conviction was quashed in 1991 and he received an official apology from Tony Blair, then prime minister, in 2005.

Mr Maguire spent four years in prison – his older brothers much longer – and said he left an “angry man”, “boozy”, “taking drugs” and like an “unguided missile” targeted against the authorities.

The self-confessed “biggest kid in the world” told the New Journal how, aged 50, he has rediscovered his youth through powerful and creative art inspired by experience. His latest works are on display at Mario’s café in Kentish Town.

“I’m still sticking two fingers up to ‘them’,” said Mr Maguire. “But in a nice way! My mother, Annie, older brother Vince and Gerry Conlon came down to Mario’s yesterday.

“They loved it all, and in particular this one called ‘It’s Not True’.”

The image is of a small boy in a dark room with a pencil and paper in front of him, half obscured by a shadow – possibly from a burly detective during the time Mr Maguire was interrogated.

He said: “They said, ‘that’s the confession’. We all had to sign it. But I never set out to represent that, it just happens that way.

“The way my mum was looking at me, her eyes were like TV monitors. It was the way she looked at me when she came to see me in prison. It was pride, I think, that her little boy was doing well.”

Mr Maguire was diagnosed with manic depression and checked into the Priory 10 years ago. It was there that he began drawing – using flashes of bright colour during his manic highs, and dark, charcoal and pencil sketches during the lows. One mesh-style, grid-lined image has a small red blotch in the top right corner – symbolising the light that was on in his cell when he was on suicide watch. Another has vibrant yellows and reds and is called the “Skateboarding Dog”.

“I was thinking to myself about whether I had a problem charging for my art,” he said. “But I don’t. Because it has cost me so much. We are talking about the soul of the artist. And mine’s hanging on the wall here.

“Everybody knows me as one of the Maguire 7, but I’d love to one day stand as Patrick Maguire the artist.”

Mr Maguire’s six months in the Priory cost him almost all of the £100,000 compensation he received from the government.

But he said: “I told Tony Blair that I’d had to spend my compensation on going to the ­Priory, and he said, ‘we’ll get that sorted for you – I’ll get your money back’. I sent letters, I followed it up – I never got a penny.”

Mr Maguire, who still takes medication, said his art was helping him to “turn it round” and that he wanted to go into Camden schools and talk to groups of troubled children.

He added: “There are a lot of kids going around acting tough, but who ever stops and asks them, ‘why?’ I’d like to talk to them in schools. They might look at me and say that it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. But this guy’s cracked on. Maybe I can get through what I can do too.”

• Patrick Maguire’s work is on display and up for sale at Mario’s café in Kelly Street for five weeks.