A man who has spent decades insisting he did not murder his pregnant wife will make another emotional attempt to clear his name in tonight’s The Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt.
Eddie Gilfoyle, now in his 60s, was jailed for life in 1993 after being convicted of murdering his wife Paula.
She was found hanged in the garage of their home while eight and a half months pregnant.
Despite there being no forensic evidence, police concluded Eddie had persuaded Paula, 32, to take her own life.
The prosecution case centred largely on the belief that Paula was a “bubbly” young woman who would not have taken her own life, particularly while heavily pregnant.
In the Channel 4 documentary, Eddie is asked directly: “Did you kill your wife?”
He replies: “I did not kill my wife. My wife took her own life.”
Eddie adds: “I want to clear my name. That’s what I’m living for.”
The Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt’s Eddie Gilfoyle case
The latest episode begins in 1992 in Upton, Wirral, when Eddie returns home to find an alarming handwritten note.
Unable to find Paula, he races to get his brother-in-law, Paul Craddick, to help search the house.
It is Paul, who later married Eddie’s sister, who makes the devastating discovery in the garage after opening the door and finding Paula hanging from the ceiling.
Paul tells the documentary that Eddie never saw Paula’s body. He does remember his friend “wailing and wailing” after learning what had happened.
Police initially treated the death as suicide. Within days, however, detectives changed direction and focused on Eddie as their main suspect.
Paul, a retired police officer, says: “[The garage] was not treated like a crime scene. And the consequences of that can be catastrophic.”
Eddie soon found himself at the centre of intense media attention over a crime he insists he never committed.
Looking visibly emotional in the documentary, he recalls rumours spreading around the local community.
“Someone threw a noose at the window of my mum and dad’s house and that’s what flipped me over the top,” he says. “It all got too much and I ended up in a psychiatric hospital.”
While receiving treatment, Eddie was rearrested and charged with Paula’s murder.
He recalls: “It was a nightmare, upon nightmare, upon nightmare.
“I’d never been in a prison. I ended up going into a room where they held all the sex offenders. I was wondering what the hell I have done to deserve all this [bleep].
“It was the worst time of my life and I hated every single second of it.”
Police reconstruction video
The documentary also hears from Applied Social Psychologist, Professor David Canter, who originally advised police during the investigation.
Reading from his 1992 report, he says: “I consider that it is very unlikely that Paul Gilfoyle wrote the suicide letter with the intention of taking her life. Or that she moved the ladders and put the rope around her neck with the intention of committing suicide.”
The following year, Eddie stood trial for murder.
The prosecution argued Paula would not have taken her own life while pregnant. Seventeen witnesses described her as “bubbly” and “happy”.
Jurors were also shown a police reconstruction video featuring a pregnant police officer attempting, but failing, to tie a rope around the garage beam while standing on a ladder.
Paul says: “Whether this policewoman can or can’t do it, it doesn’t answer the question about whether Paula could do it.”
Eddie recalls his legal team choosing not to call any defence witnesses.
Paul explains: “They were confident a lack of prosecution tying Eddie to it was enough.”
It was not enough. Eddie was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years.
He was sent to Wakefield Prison, known as Monster Mansion, which he describes as “hell”.
Failed appeals and expert U-turn
The programme follows Eddie’s attempts to overturn his conviction through two appeals, both of which were unsuccessful.
One significant development came from Professor David Canter, who has since changed his opinion following years of research into perinatal mental health.
He says: “You feel under a lot of pressure to offer an informed opinion. I was guilty of leaning towards the general view of a pregnant woman killing herself as unlikely.
“There’s no evidence for it. It was just an opinion. What I’ve learned about suicide and suicide in pregnant women, I didn’t have that information at the time.”
Professor Canter now believes Paula wrote the suicide note herself.
Lancashire Police later carried out its own review and found no evidence that a crime had been committed.
The documentary also reveals Paula’s diaries and letters were later discovered. In one written during the early stages of her pregnancy, she says: “Unfortunately, the baby has come when I’m at the lowest ever in my life.”
Despite that, Eddie’s conviction remains in place. Released on licence in 2010 after serving 17 years, he is still fighting to clear his name.
“I want my life given back,” he says.
Paula’s family react to The Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Merseyside Police said in a statement to Channel 4 that it continues to stand by the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s decision not to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.
Paula’s family also responded, saying: “This case underwent a thorough legal process, resulting in a Crown Court conviction, and all subsequent appeals were rejected.
“To frame this case as a miscarriage of justice shifts the narrative away from the perpetrator and back onto the victim, a pregnant woman who has no voice to defend herself.”
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