Shoot to Kill (1990 TV drama)
Encyclopedia
Shoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland
in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy
); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.
The film, written by Michael Eaton and directed by Peter Kosminsky
, was made by the ITV
company Yorkshire Television
, and screened in two parts over successive nights in June 1990. However, the programme was not broadcast in Northern Ireland itself, a precaution that Ulster Television said reflected legal advice that it might prejudice future inquests on the deceased, which had been suspended.
The programme was made with the co-operation of John Thorburn, Stalker's deputy with day-to-day responsibility on the inquiry, and was said to reveal significant new information about the underlying events and how the inquiry had progressed.
Shoot to Kill was widely applauded by critics. It won the 1990 award for Best Single Drama from both the Royal Television Society
and the Broadcasting Press Guild
, and a nomination in that category for a BAFTA Award
. The score was written by Rachel Portman
.
; the fatal shooting of three members of the IRA
, who turned out to be unarmed, in a car at Craigavon
; the shooting of Michael Tighe and IRA member Martin McCauley, also found to be unarmed, at a hayshed in Ballyneery near Lurgan
; and the killing of two INLA members, again discovered to be unarmed, in a car at Mullacreavie Park, near Armagh
; along with the creation of adjusted or fabricated accounts of the actions of RUC Special Support Unit
members in the events, some of which unravelled in court in March 1984.
The second part shows Stalker, his second-in-command Thorburn, and the inquiry team, as they dig out more and more of what really happened, faced with a complete lack of encouragement from the RUC, a clash of views as to what was acceptable, and ultimately Stalker's removal from the inquiry before its conclusion.
's First Tuesday
documentary strand had long been considering making a programme on the Stalker Inquiry and the so-called Shoot-to-kill allegations. Kosminsky, who had producer-directed the documentaries The Falklands War: the Untold Story (1987), Cambodia: Children of the Killing Fields (1988) and Afghantsi
(1988) for the strand, was keen to take the subject on. However, Kosminsky found that there was nobody he could talk to on-camera: "They were either dead, disappeared or not allowed to talk to us." Many serving or past officers were silenced by the Official Secrets Act
. "The only thing to shoot was a few guilty buildings, there really was nothing." Although Kosminsky distrusted "faction", and had told the press he "hated" this "evil form", he began to think of putting the research that had been gathered into a drama format, to make best use of the contacts that had been achieved.
At the same time Zenith Productions
were also considering a possible drama on the Stalker affair. Zenith was a production company that had been involved with a number of British cinema films in the mid 1980s, and was also making the Inspector Morse
series for television. Zenith's plans came to the attention of Yorkshire Television's head of drama, Keith Richardson
, who suggested merging the two projects; which ultimately led Yorkshire into the unusual position of commissioning its biggest and most prestigious drama of the year from an independent. From Zenith came experienced producer Nigel Stafford-Clark
who had recently moved to the company, while Kosminsky was set to direct.
A turning point for the production came when the recently retired John Thorburn agreed to act as consultant. Detective Chief Superintendent Thorburn, a former head of the Manchester murder squad, had been Stalker's number two on the investigation, in charge of the day-to-day running of the inquiry, while Stalker flew in from time to time to supervise as required. Thorburn had never spoken to the press about his role, despite the best efforts of both Kosminsky for Yorkshire's First Tuesday, and Peter Taylor
of the BBC's series Panorama
, to persuade him. However, in January 1988 the Attorney General
, Sir Patrick Mayhew
, announced to Parliament that despite evidence that RUC officers had obstructed and perverted the course of justice, he had advised the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland
that it would not be in the public interest for those officers to be prosecuted, for reasons of national security. This changed Thorburn's mind. According to Kosminsky, "He didn't do it for the money... I just happened to hit him at a time when his frustration hit a peak."
Stalker himself published his own book Stalker on the subject in February 1988, and the production team considered taking out an option on it. But Michael Eaton, who they approached to dramatise it, suggested that he "did not want to write a film just centred around one policeman. It was as important to make a film about everything that led to the inquiry as it was to make a film about the inquiry itself." This was also the view of the rest of the team, and so the production went ahead on the basis of the material and contacts they already had. Given the amount of research that had already been done, and the need to be led by it, Eaton said of his role and that of writers working on similar projects "We are structuralists rather than dramatists − producers want us to supply form and structure." Dramatists also did not usually face the challenge, according to Eaton, of having all three of their main characters being called John. It was "unconventional" to choose to have the main protagonists, Stalker and his team, not to appear at all for the first hour and three quarters; but Eaton felt this added to the audience suspense, knowing what there was for the inquiry to find, but not knowing which paths the inquiry would take, and whether it would be uncovered. The script ultimately went to ten drafts, with Yorkshire Television's lawyers demanding the justification for every line. Stalker himself kept a distance from the project, although Eaton and Kosminsky talked to him "at some length"; but after a pre-transmission screening Stalker described it as "a faithful reproduction of Northern Ireland events". He was also said to have told his wife that he considered it "well acted and fairly accurate".
.
For Kosminsky it was his first experience of directing a television drama, an undertaking that, with a budget of £1.5 million, a cast of 125, a crew of 80, and 500 extras, was on an altogether bigger scale than the investigative documentaries he had previously made. Having never shot a frame of drama before, he described the first day as one of the scariest challenges of his life. "I just literally did not know whether I could do it." He was later to call it his "big break", and it became the first of many hard-hitting research-led dramas, including No Child of Mine (1997), Warriors
(1999), The Government Inspector
(2005) and The Promise
(2011).
Throughout, the team was committed to put the factual research first in the making of the film, ahead of purely dramatic considerations. "We strove very hard to not to sacrifice reality to the demands of good television", according to the producer Stafford-Clark.
This information, according to The Times, included new details of how the operation against Dominic McGlinchy had ended in a "murderous farce", building on what had come out at the trial of RUC Constable John Robinson. More widely, the newspapers identified questions arising from what the programme presented of the role of the RUC's informant in the IRA. It appeared that, simply on his say-so, he had been able to get the RUC to target, with lethal consequences, the men he claimed were responsible for the Kinnego embankment explosion. Allegedly he had also been in a position to send these same men out on an operation to kill an RUC reservist, into the line of fire of a police ambush, making him an agent provocateur
and, as Hugh Hebert put it in The Guardian
, "creating the conditions in which assassination is inevitable". Darker still were questions around how the explosives used at Kinnego had got out of a hayshed that was supposedly being monitored. Had it just been an equipment failure? The film suggested that the inquiry had seriously considered the possibility, voiced by the Thorburn character, that the explosives might have been deliberately allowed out of the hayshed, and the three uniformed policemen deliberately allowed into a dangerous area leading to their deaths, to preserve the credibility within the IRA of the Special Branch source.
On the question of the alleged "shoot-to-kill" policy itself (described perhaps more precisely by Tom King
, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, as allegations of a policy to "shoot on sight, or without proper warning, or without observing the correct procedures for the use of force"), the programme was elliptical. What it did represent was a particular SAS
-style training exercise undertaken by the RUC Special Support Unit
, emphasising its mantra of "Firepower, Speed, Aggression", with a briefing to the participants about what they should and shouldn't do: "1. Don't stop to think about it. Take out the terrorists before they can take out the hostages. 2. No warnings. When did you see the IRA hold up a yellow card? 3. Go for the trunk. Double tap
. Your aim is to eliminate the threat completely. Now take those bastards out of action." The programme then showed a briefing which played on the men's feelings for their colleagues murdered at Kinnego, and emphasised that Eugene Toman, Sean Burns, and Martin McCauley were the men believed "from an impeccable source" to be responsible, before knowingly concluding: "When you get the word from E4a, I want a Vehicle Control Point set up and I want these men stopped. No mistakes. Remember: firepower, speed, aggression. Show me what you've learnt..." This presentation could be read as consistent with John Stalker's view, expressed to The Times in February 1988, that "I never did find evidence of a shoot-to-kill policy as such. There was no written instruction, nothing pinned up on a noticeboard. But there was a clear understanding on the part of the men whose job it was to pull the trigger that that was what was expected of them."
But Kosminsky was keen that the RUC side of the argument too should be fairly represented. "I've bent over backwards not to pretend that there are black and white solutions to these problems. And secondly to try and make the RUC case make sense – because they have a case." "I'm not trying to present Stalker as a white knight on a white charger and the RUC as fascists. I'm trying to present a faithful picture with the grey areas deliberately left grey." Kosminsky said of the film as a whole that "I hope it won't give any succour to terrorist forces, but I hope it will bring out the question of RUC accountability from beneath the carpet where I believe it was swept".
(IBA), the regulator of British independent television at the time, for a formal screening before the full board, after IBA staff members who had been shown a preview copy flagged up concerns about the title and the extensive use of actual names in the programme. This was a highly unusual step, which had not been taken for many years. For example, similar action had not been taken before the showing of Thames Television
's controversial Death on the Rock
in 1988, nor for Granada Television
's drama-documentary Who Bombed Birmingham? about the Birmingham Six
earlier in the year.
The Board viewed the film on 17 May, a little over two weeks before the planned broadcast. In the event however, they stipulated only that the film be preceded by a caption to say that it was a drama-documentary; and that some adjustment be made to the wording of a final caption noting the statement to Parliament by the Attorney General
Sir Patrick Mayhew
in January 1988, that although there was evidence of RUC officers obstructing and perverting the course of justice, he had advised the Director of Public Prosecutions
for Northern Ireland that due to considerations of national security a prosecution of those officers would not be in the public interest. Subject to those two provisos, the Board cleared the programme for transmission.
A preview screening was also held in Belfast on 21 May, at which the former RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon (who had retired in May 1989) and a number of senior RUC officers were described as having "sat impassively, and made no comment". However, in an interview on 31 May, three days before transmission, Sir John accused the film of containing false and inaccurate information and giving neither a factual nor objective portrayal of the shootings.
Within hours Ulster Television (UTV) announced that it would not show the film. UTV said it had taken legal advice, that the film might be prejudicial to legal inquest
s that were still suspended into the six deaths. The company refused to comment as to whether or not its decision had been linked to Sir John's criticism. The decision was attacked by the local MP for Armagh, the Social Democratic and Labour Party
's (SDLP) Seamus Mallon
; and also by the production company Zenith, who called it "appalling and shameful" that the people most affected by the issues in the programme would be prevented from seeing it. Kosminsky said he found it hard to understand, given the amount that had already been published on the Stalker case, how UTV could accept legal advice that the programme could prejudice juries at inquests that might not be held for at least a year.
subtitles for the programme, so blacked out the entire Oracle
teletext information service for the duration of the broadcast.
As was the norm for controversial programmes at the time, the second part was followed by a half-hour studio discussion called Shoot to Kill: The Issues. Chaired by Olivia O'Leary
, the regular presenter of First Tuesday, the discussion featured Kosminsky with the MPs Ian Gow
of the Conservative Party
(assassinated by the Provisional IRA two months later), Seamus Mallon
of the SDLP, and David Trimble
of the Ulster Unionist Party
, along with Larry Cox of Amnesty International
. Sir John Hermon was also invited to take part, but declined. Trimble particularly objected to a rhetorical line that what had been going on was "not Dixon of Dock Green
− it's more like some death squad out of a banana republic", said by Stalker in the film, apparently for the benefit of the RUC eavesdroppers who were listening in. Gow and Trimble also charged that viewers would be left not knowing what had been real and what had been invented. Kosminsky retorted that there was "absolutely nothing" in the film that didn't happen, and was backed up as to its general veracity by Mallon and Cox.
in the Best Single Drama category, and won the 1990 award in that category from both the Royal Television Society
and the Broadcasting Press Guild
. The Sunday Times critic Patrick Stoddart described it as Kosminsky's "first and massively impressive drama". Chris Dunkely of the Financial Times
said it was "the sort of programme that makes me want to stand up and cheer", calling it "admirable" and "remarkably even handed", with "splendid performances... and very superior camerawork and editing. Given that Kosminsky has never made a drama before it is an astonishing achievement. But above all a heartening one". Ian Christie in the Daily Express
called it remarkable and gripping, concluding that "the film was compelling, the script and direction incisive, the performances first rate". The technical qualities of the film were widely applauded. Mark Sanderson in Time Out noted the challenges the film makers had faced − a vast amount of information to convey, a huge number of real people to present with hardly any time to develop characterisation, an outcome that everybody knew − and considered that writer Michael Eaton had succeeded "triumphantly", using the tense and smoky style of a thriller to establish a nation under siege, "where the spools of the tape recorders never stop turning". Nancy Banks Smith in The Guardian
compared the "sense of tension and throttling pressure" of the second part to that of a "Western
by a great master... Will he get them before they get him? Even though you know he won't, you feel he might."
Critics also applauded the dramatic space given to the two contending sides. Sheridan Morley
in The Times
described "Stalker and Sir John Hermon of the RUC, two giants superbly played by Jack Shepherd and T.P. McKenna. Both men are fighting for what they believe to be paramount: Stalker for the objective truth, Hermon for the honour of a police force in what he describes as a jungle". According to Mark Sanderson in Time Out, "both sides are fairly represented". Patrick Stoddart in the Sunday Times agreed: T.P. McKenna as Sir John Hermon had been "forceful", and the film-makers had been "wise" to demonstrate that they "understood the stresses facing members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary" and to "set the investigation against that backdrop". In the end, according to Stoddart, it was "the cock-ups and the cover-ups that really exercised the investigators".
The Guardians Hugo Young
, writing a few months later, called the drama "a brilliant programme... seductively watchable, beautifully filmed, spaciously elaborate in its slow build-up of the characters and evidence on each side of the argument".
But for Young, dramatic balance was not enough, and the skill of execution made the problem he saw even more acute. The drama was not just making an "observation on human affairs as these illuminated the human condition", rather "it purported to be a faithful rendition of events, and the purpose of it was to conduct a forensic inquiry into the moral quality of those events." "[A]ctors playing scripted parts: Sir John Hermon, the RUC chief, Stalker himself, were displayed as if wholly and completely real." He worried that such techniques could be "capable of fatally blurring the line between what is true and what is televisually convenient".
Other critics too had niggling worries about the reality. For example, as Melinda Witstock noted later in The Times, when the film showed an MI5 chief promising to help Stalker, then reaching for a telephone and saying "We have a problem" once Stalker had gone, who could have been present to witness such a call? Or as Hugh Hebert asked in The Guardian, when the film showed a battery genuinely stolen to lure the uniformed RUC men to their deaths, but Stalker's book said the call had been made by a farmer under duress, who is the viewer to believe? For the television dramatist G.F. Newman in Time Out the film did not show the truth − it was Thorburn's truth; and Sheridan Morley cautioned that the film was a drama, not a documentary: "we have no absolute guarantee that it has given us the whole truth".
Nevertheless, along with other critics, Morley appeared to accept the main thrust of the programme, considering that the "contemptuous lack of co-operation by the RUC is indeed terrifying" and the programme usefully illustrated "the contrast between acceptable police behaviour 'on the mainland', as Stalker puts it, and in Ireland, where other laws would seem to obtain."
The former RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon continued to dispute the programme's reconstruction of events. The day after transmission he told ITN
's lunchtime news that the programme was "not at all accurate" and "totally without any credibility". In October 1990 he filed suit for libel against Yorkshire Television over the way he personally had been portrayed. According to Kosminsky the action eventually boiled down to "how much cold tea we had put in Jack Hermon's brandy glass". The suit was finally settled out of court in June 1992, Yorkshire Television reputedly having agreed to pay Hermon £50,000. Shoot to Kill has never been re-shown, nor released on video or DVD. ITV refused to allow it to be included in a retrospective season of Kosminsky's work at the British Film Institute
in 2011.
Stalker had submitted an interim report, setting out the inquiry's progress to September 1985, which ran to 15 bound volumes. It was said to have contained over 40 draft recommendations for changes to operating procedures; and criminal or disciplinary charges against up to 40 members of the RUC. The final Sampson report was submitted in October 1986 and April 1987.
As of 2011 the Stalker and Sampson reports have never been released; but in May 2010 Northern Ireland's senior coroner, who has re-opened an inquest on the killings, had his direction upheld by the High Court to have redacted versions of the reports given to the families of those shot.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
(RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy
Shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland
During the period known as "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary were accused of operating a shoot-to-kill policy, under which suspects were alleged to have been deliberately killed without any attempt to arrest them...
); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.
The film, written by Michael Eaton and directed by Peter Kosminsky
Peter Kosminsky
Peter Kosminsky is a British writer, director and producer. He has directed Hollywood movies such as White Oleander and television films like Warriors, The Government Inspector and The Promise.- Biography :...
, was made by the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
company Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
, and screened in two parts over successive nights in June 1990. However, the programme was not broadcast in Northern Ireland itself, a precaution that Ulster Television said reflected legal advice that it might prejudice future inquests on the deceased, which had been suspended.
The programme was made with the co-operation of John Thorburn, Stalker's deputy with day-to-day responsibility on the inquiry, and was said to reveal significant new information about the underlying events and how the inquiry had progressed.
Shoot to Kill was widely applauded by critics. It won the 1990 award for Best Single Drama from both the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
and the Broadcasting Press Guild
Broadcasting Press Guild
The Broadcasting Press Guild is a British association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media generally....
, and a nomination in that category for a BAFTA Award
British Academy Television Awards
The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...
. The score was written by Rachel Portman
Rachel Portman
Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman, OBE is a British composer, best known for her film work. She was the first female composer to win an Academy Award in the category of Best Original Score...
.
Synopsis
The first two-hour part dramatises the events in late 1982 that lay behind the inquiry: the killing of three policemen by a massive landmine at Kinnego embankment in County ArmaghCounty Armagh
-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...
; the fatal shooting of three members of the IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
, who turned out to be unarmed, in a car at Craigavon
Craigavon
Craigavon is a settlement in north County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It was a planned settlement that was begun in 1965 and named after Northern Ireland's first Prime Minister — James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon. It was intended to be a linear city incorporating Lurgan and Portadown, but this plan...
; the shooting of Michael Tighe and IRA member Martin McCauley, also found to be unarmed, at a hayshed in Ballyneery near Lurgan
Lurgan
Lurgan is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and in the north-eastern corner of the county. Part of the Craigavon Borough Council area, Lurgan is about 18 miles south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway...
; and the killing of two INLA members, again discovered to be unarmed, in a car at Mullacreavie Park, near Armagh
Armagh
Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...
; along with the creation of adjusted or fabricated accounts of the actions of RUC Special Support Unit
Headquarters Mobile Support Unit
The Headquarters Mobile Support Unit was a detachment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, now re-named the Police Service of Northern Ireland .-Background:...
members in the events, some of which unravelled in court in March 1984.
The second part shows Stalker, his second-in-command Thorburn, and the inquiry team, as they dig out more and more of what really happened, faced with a complete lack of encouragement from the RUC, a clash of views as to what was acceptable, and ultimately Stalker's removal from the inquiry before its conclusion.
Cast
- Jack Shepherd, as DCC John StalkerJohn StalkerJohn Stalker is a former Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, now residing in Lymm. He headed the Stalker Inquiry that investigated the shooting of suspected members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1982. He has also had a television and literary career.-Career:Stalker...
, Greater Manchester PoliceGreater Manchester PoliceGreater Manchester Police is the police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England... - David CalderDavid Calder (actor)David Calder is a British actor.Calder was born in Portsmouth, England, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His most high profile TV roles include Det. Insp...
, as DCS John Thorburn, Greater Manchester Police - T. P. McKennaT. P. McKennaThomas Patrick McKenna , known professionally as T. P. McKenna, was an Irish actor who worked on stage, in film and television in Ireland and the UK from the 1950s.- Film and television :...
, as Chief Constable Sir John HermonJohn HermonSir John Hermon, OBE, QPM was the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from 1980-89.John Charles "Jack" Hermon, was born in Castletown, Islandmagee, County Antrim. He had a grammar school education and gave up an early career in accountancy to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1950...
, Royal Ulster Constabulary - George Shane, as DCI Samuel George Flanagan, RUC Special Branch tasking and co-ordination
- Patrick DruryPatrick DruryPatrick Drury is a character actor best remembered for playing shopkeeper John O'Leary in the Channel 4 comedy Father Ted. Drury was married to actress Caroline Langrishe before divorcing in 1995. They have two daughters, Rosalind and Leonie....
, as Detective Inspector, RUC Special Branch - Richard Hawley, as Constable John Robinson, RUC Special Support Unit
- Gary WhelanGary WhelanGary Whelan is an Irish actor, known for his work on British television.Although born in Ireland, Gary relocated to London when he was ten years old.-Acting:He has portrayed several roles in the police force...
, as Constable David Brannigan, RUC Special Support Unit - Ian McElhinneyIan McElhinneyIan McElhinney is an actor and director.-Personal life:He is married to playwright/actress Marie Jones. Together they started their own company, Rathmore Productions Ltd.-Filmography:-External links:...
, as Assistant Chief Constable Trevor Forbes - Daragh O'MalleyDaragh O'MalleyDaragh O'Malley is an Irish film, theatre and television actor, best known for his portrayal of the much loved and ever faithful but rather fearsome Patrick Harper in the legendary Sharpe TV series along side Sean Bean...
, as Constable "Y", RUC Special Support Unit - Stevan Rimkus, as IRA informer
- Barry Birch, as Michael Tighe
- Breffni McKenna, as Martin McCauley
- Christopher Macey, as Police Driver
Preparation
Yorkshire TelevisionYorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
's First Tuesday
First Tuesday (documentary strand)
First Tuesday or This World was a monthly television documentary strand, shown in the United Kingdom on the ITV network. The subject matter was mainly social issues and current affairs stories from around the world. It ran from 5 April 1983 to 2 November 1993, with programme being shown on the...
documentary strand had long been considering making a programme on the Stalker Inquiry and the so-called Shoot-to-kill allegations. Kosminsky, who had producer-directed the documentaries The Falklands War: the Untold Story (1987), Cambodia: Children of the Killing Fields (1988) and Afghantsi
Afghantsi
Afghantsi is a 1988 documentary film directed by Peter Kosminsky for Yorkshire Television.It is based on numerous interviews with Soviet soldiers and officers filmed in Kabul at the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan....
(1988) for the strand, was keen to take the subject on. However, Kosminsky found that there was nobody he could talk to on-camera: "They were either dead, disappeared or not allowed to talk to us." Many serving or past officers were silenced by the Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act
The Official Secrets Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Malaysia and formerly in New Zealand for legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security.-United Kingdom:*The Official Secrets...
. "The only thing to shoot was a few guilty buildings, there really was nothing." Although Kosminsky distrusted "faction", and had told the press he "hated" this "evil form", he began to think of putting the research that had been gathered into a drama format, to make best use of the contacts that had been achieved.
At the same time Zenith Productions
Zenith Productions
Zenith Productions was a British independent film and television production company which made a number of drama series including Inspector Morse for ITV, and several series including Byker Grove and Hamish Macbeth for the BBC...
were also considering a possible drama on the Stalker affair. Zenith was a production company that had been involved with a number of British cinema films in the mid 1980s, and was also making the Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse (TV series)
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....
series for television. Zenith's plans came to the attention of Yorkshire Television's head of drama, Keith Richardson
Keith Richardson
Keith Richardson is an English television executive who is currently Controller of Drama for ITV Yorkshire and is notable for being Executive Producer of the station's primetime soap, Emmerdale. Richardson was in charge of the programme for 24 years, during which time he oversaw its transformation...
, who suggested merging the two projects; which ultimately led Yorkshire into the unusual position of commissioning its biggest and most prestigious drama of the year from an independent. From Zenith came experienced producer Nigel Stafford-Clark
Nigel Stafford-Clark
Nigel Stafford-Clark is a British film and television producer, and the brother of the theatre director Max Stafford-Clark. He was educated at Felsted and Trinity College, Cambridge, and worked in advertising and in sponsored documentaries before becoming a commercials producer at Moving Picture...
who had recently moved to the company, while Kosminsky was set to direct.
A turning point for the production came when the recently retired John Thorburn agreed to act as consultant. Detective Chief Superintendent Thorburn, a former head of the Manchester murder squad, had been Stalker's number two on the investigation, in charge of the day-to-day running of the inquiry, while Stalker flew in from time to time to supervise as required. Thorburn had never spoken to the press about his role, despite the best efforts of both Kosminsky for Yorkshire's First Tuesday, and Peter Taylor
Peter Taylor (Journalist)
Peter Taylor born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire is a British journalist and documentary-maker who had covered for many years the political and armed conflict in Northern Ireland, widely known as the Troubles...
of the BBC's series Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
, to persuade him. However, in January 1988 the Attorney General
Attorney General for England and Wales
Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. Along with the subordinate Solicitor General for England and Wales, the Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser of the Crown and its government in...
, Sir Patrick Mayhew
Patrick Mayhew
Patrick Barnabas Burke Mayhew, Baron Mayhew of Twysden, PC is a British barrister, and Conservative Party politician.He was educated at Tonbridge School and Balliol College, Oxford...
, announced to Parliament that despite evidence that RUC officers had obstructed and perverted the course of justice, he had advised the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland
Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland
The Director of Public Prosecutions is the head of the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland, and is appointed by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. The current DPP is Sir Alasdair Fraser CB QC.-See also:*Director of Public Prosecutions...
that it would not be in the public interest for those officers to be prosecuted, for reasons of national security. This changed Thorburn's mind. According to Kosminsky, "He didn't do it for the money... I just happened to hit him at a time when his frustration hit a peak."
Stalker himself published his own book Stalker on the subject in February 1988, and the production team considered taking out an option on it. But Michael Eaton, who they approached to dramatise it, suggested that he "did not want to write a film just centred around one policeman. It was as important to make a film about everything that led to the inquiry as it was to make a film about the inquiry itself." This was also the view of the rest of the team, and so the production went ahead on the basis of the material and contacts they already had. Given the amount of research that had already been done, and the need to be led by it, Eaton said of his role and that of writers working on similar projects "We are structuralists rather than dramatists − producers want us to supply form and structure." Dramatists also did not usually face the challenge, according to Eaton, of having all three of their main characters being called John. It was "unconventional" to choose to have the main protagonists, Stalker and his team, not to appear at all for the first hour and three quarters; but Eaton felt this added to the audience suspense, knowing what there was for the inquiry to find, but not knowing which paths the inquiry would take, and whether it would be uncovered. The script ultimately went to ten drafts, with Yorkshire Television's lawyers demanding the justification for every line. Stalker himself kept a distance from the project, although Eaton and Kosminsky talked to him "at some length"; but after a pre-transmission screening Stalker described it as "a faithful reproduction of Northern Ireland events". He was also said to have told his wife that he considered it "well acted and fairly accurate".
Filming
Filming began in October 1989 and lasted until Christmas, in a "relentless" shoot to achieve almost 400 scenes in ten weeks. The production was based at the Yorkshire TV facilities in Leeds, with the nearby hills of West Yorkshire standing in for the rolling countryside of County ArmaghCounty Armagh
-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...
.
For Kosminsky it was his first experience of directing a television drama, an undertaking that, with a budget of £1.5 million, a cast of 125, a crew of 80, and 500 extras, was on an altogether bigger scale than the investigative documentaries he had previously made. Having never shot a frame of drama before, he described the first day as one of the scariest challenges of his life. "I just literally did not know whether I could do it." He was later to call it his "big break", and it became the first of many hard-hitting research-led dramas, including No Child of Mine (1997), Warriors
Warriors (TV series)
Warriors is a British television drama serial, written by Leigh Jackson, produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark and directed by Peter Kosminsky. It starred Matthew Macfadyen, Damian Lewis and Ioan Gruffudd. The music was written by Debbie Wiseman...
(1999), The Government Inspector
The Government Inspector (television drama)
The Government Inspector is a 2005 television drama based on the life of Dr. David Kelly and the lead-up to the Iraq War in the United Kingdom...
(2005) and The Promise
The Promise (2011 TV serial)
The Promise is a British television serial in four episodes written and directed by Peter Kosminsky, with music by Debbie Wiseman, which premiered on 6 February 2011 on Channel 4...
(2011).
Throughout, the team was committed to put the factual research first in the making of the film, ahead of purely dramatic considerations. "We strove very hard to not to sacrifice reality to the demands of good television", according to the producer Stafford-Clark.
Treatment of themes
According to Kosminsky, the objective of the programme was not "trial by television" or "naming the guilty men". Although the programme did use real names, these were all already known to the public through Stalker's book and the extensive journalism the affair had already attacted. Rather, Kosminsky said he wanted the film to reveal a lot of "new information, which is not so far in the public domain, largely from the experiences of John Thorburn"; and he said that his aim was that "whatever view the audience comes to about the rights and wrongs of the issue, they will at least know the events, the facts − what happened".This information, according to The Times, included new details of how the operation against Dominic McGlinchy had ended in a "murderous farce", building on what had come out at the trial of RUC Constable John Robinson. More widely, the newspapers identified questions arising from what the programme presented of the role of the RUC's informant in the IRA. It appeared that, simply on his say-so, he had been able to get the RUC to target, with lethal consequences, the men he claimed were responsible for the Kinnego embankment explosion. Allegedly he had also been in a position to send these same men out on an operation to kill an RUC reservist, into the line of fire of a police ambush, making him an agent provocateur
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
and, as Hugh Hebert put it in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, "creating the conditions in which assassination is inevitable". Darker still were questions around how the explosives used at Kinnego had got out of a hayshed that was supposedly being monitored. Had it just been an equipment failure? The film suggested that the inquiry had seriously considered the possibility, voiced by the Thorburn character, that the explosives might have been deliberately allowed out of the hayshed, and the three uniformed policemen deliberately allowed into a dangerous area leading to their deaths, to preserve the credibility within the IRA of the Special Branch source.
On the question of the alleged "shoot-to-kill" policy itself (described perhaps more precisely by Tom King
Tom King, Baron King of Bridgwater
Thomas Jeremy King, Baron King of Bridgwater, CH, PC , is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet from 1983–92, and was the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Bridgwater in Somerset from 1970-2001...
, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, as allegations of a policy to "shoot on sight, or without proper warning, or without observing the correct procedures for the use of force"), the programme was elliptical. What it did represent was a particular SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
-style training exercise undertaken by the RUC Special Support Unit
Headquarters Mobile Support Unit
The Headquarters Mobile Support Unit was a detachment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, now re-named the Police Service of Northern Ireland .-Background:...
, emphasising its mantra of "Firepower, Speed, Aggression", with a briefing to the participants about what they should and shouldn't do: "1. Don't stop to think about it. Take out the terrorists before they can take out the hostages. 2. No warnings. When did you see the IRA hold up a yellow card? 3. Go for the trunk. Double tap
Double tap
A double tap or controlled pair is a shooting technique where two well-aimed shots are fired at the same target with very little time in between shots. Instruction and practice of the double-tap improves overall accuracy as shooters often do not have the gun fully extended on the first shot meaning...
. Your aim is to eliminate the threat completely. Now take those bastards out of action." The programme then showed a briefing which played on the men's feelings for their colleagues murdered at Kinnego, and emphasised that Eugene Toman, Sean Burns, and Martin McCauley were the men believed "from an impeccable source" to be responsible, before knowingly concluding: "When you get the word from E4a, I want a Vehicle Control Point set up and I want these men stopped. No mistakes. Remember: firepower, speed, aggression. Show me what you've learnt..." This presentation could be read as consistent with John Stalker's view, expressed to The Times in February 1988, that "I never did find evidence of a shoot-to-kill policy as such. There was no written instruction, nothing pinned up on a noticeboard. But there was a clear understanding on the part of the men whose job it was to pull the trigger that that was what was expected of them."
But Kosminsky was keen that the RUC side of the argument too should be fairly represented. "I've bent over backwards not to pretend that there are black and white solutions to these problems. And secondly to try and make the RUC case make sense – because they have a case." "I'm not trying to present Stalker as a white knight on a white charger and the RUC as fascists. I'm trying to present a faithful picture with the grey areas deliberately left grey." Kosminsky said of the film as a whole that "I hope it won't give any succour to terrorist forces, but I hope it will bring out the question of RUC accountability from beneath the carpet where I believe it was swept".
Pre-broadcast
The film was called in by the Independent Broadcasting AuthorityIndependent Broadcasting Authority
The Independent Broadcasting Authority was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television - and commercial/independent radio broadcasts...
(IBA), the regulator of British independent television at the time, for a formal screening before the full board, after IBA staff members who had been shown a preview copy flagged up concerns about the title and the extensive use of actual names in the programme. This was a highly unusual step, which had not been taken for many years. For example, similar action had not been taken before the showing of Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
's controversial Death on the Rock
Death on the Rock
Death on the Rock is a British Academy Television Award-winning episode of Thames Television's current affairs series This Week, first aired by the British television network ITV on 28 April 1988. On 6 March 1988, three Irish Republican Army members, Danny McCann, Sean Savage and Mairéad Farrell,...
in 1988, nor for Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
's drama-documentary Who Bombed Birmingham? about the Birmingham Six
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men—Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 in the United Kingdom for the Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and quashed by the Court of...
earlier in the year.
The Board viewed the film on 17 May, a little over two weeks before the planned broadcast. In the event however, they stipulated only that the film be preceded by a caption to say that it was a drama-documentary; and that some adjustment be made to the wording of a final caption noting the statement to Parliament by the Attorney General
Attorney General for England and Wales
Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. Along with the subordinate Solicitor General for England and Wales, the Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser of the Crown and its government in...
Sir Patrick Mayhew
Patrick Mayhew
Patrick Barnabas Burke Mayhew, Baron Mayhew of Twysden, PC is a British barrister, and Conservative Party politician.He was educated at Tonbridge School and Balliol College, Oxford...
in January 1988, that although there was evidence of RUC officers obstructing and perverting the course of justice, he had advised the Director of Public Prosecutions
Director of Public Prosecutions
The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world...
for Northern Ireland that due to considerations of national security a prosecution of those officers would not be in the public interest. Subject to those two provisos, the Board cleared the programme for transmission.
A preview screening was also held in Belfast on 21 May, at which the former RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon (who had retired in May 1989) and a number of senior RUC officers were described as having "sat impassively, and made no comment". However, in an interview on 31 May, three days before transmission, Sir John accused the film of containing false and inaccurate information and giving neither a factual nor objective portrayal of the shootings.
Within hours Ulster Television (UTV) announced that it would not show the film. UTV said it had taken legal advice, that the film might be prejudicial to legal inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
s that were still suspended into the six deaths. The company refused to comment as to whether or not its decision had been linked to Sir John's criticism. The decision was attacked by the local MP for Armagh, the Social Democratic and Labour Party
Social Democratic and Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...
's (SDLP) Seamus Mallon
Seamus Mallon
Seamus Frederick Mallon born 17 August 1936, in Markethill, County Armagh, is an Irish politician and former Deputy Leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland...
; and also by the production company Zenith, who called it "appalling and shameful" that the people most affected by the issues in the programme would be prevented from seeing it. Kosminsky said he found it hard to understand, given the amount that had already been published on the Stalker case, how UTV could accept legal advice that the programme could prejudice juries at inquests that might not be held for at least a year.
Broadcast
Across the rest of the ITV network the film duly went out as planned on Sunday 3 and Monday 4 June, and drew an audience of 9 million viewers − as Kosminsky later noted, rather more than the 1.2 million who had watched Afghantsi, for which he felt he had put his life in danger. In Northern Ireland, UTV found that it was unable to prevent the reception of centrally-originated teletextTeletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
subtitles for the programme, so blacked out the entire Oracle
ORACLE (teletext)
ORACLE was a commercial teletext service first broadcast on ITV in 1974 and later on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, finally ending on both channels at 23:59 GMT on 31 December 1992....
teletext information service for the duration of the broadcast.
As was the norm for controversial programmes at the time, the second part was followed by a half-hour studio discussion called Shoot to Kill: The Issues. Chaired by Olivia O'Leary
Olivia O'Leary
Olivia O'Leary is an Irish journalist, writer and current affairs presenter.Educated at St Leo's College, Carlow and at University College Dublin, she worked with the Nationalist and Leinster Times in Carlow...
, the regular presenter of First Tuesday, the discussion featured Kosminsky with the MPs Ian Gow
Ian Gow
Ian Reginald Edward Gow TD was a British Conservative politician and solicitor. While serving as Member of Parliament for Eastbourne, he was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army who exploded a bomb under his car outside his home in East Sussex.-Life:Ian Gow was born at 3 Upper...
of the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
(assassinated by the Provisional IRA two months later), Seamus Mallon
Seamus Mallon
Seamus Frederick Mallon born 17 August 1936, in Markethill, County Armagh, is an Irish politician and former Deputy Leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland...
of the SDLP, and David Trimble
David Trimble
William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, PC , is a politician from Northern Ireland. He served as Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party , was the first First Minister of Northern Ireland , and was a Member of the British Parliament . He is currently a life peer for the Conservative Party...
of the Ulster Unionist Party
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
, along with Larry Cox of Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
. Sir John Hermon was also invited to take part, but declined. Trimble particularly objected to a rhetorical line that what had been going on was "not Dixon of Dock Green
Dixon of Dock Green
Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series that ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. Despite being a drama series, it was initially produced by the BBC's light entertainment department.-Overview:...
− it's more like some death squad out of a banana republic", said by Stalker in the film, apparently for the benefit of the RUC eavesdroppers who were listening in. Gow and Trimble also charged that viewers would be left not knowing what had been real and what had been invented. Kosminsky retorted that there was "absolutely nothing" in the film that didn't happen, and was backed up as to its general veracity by Mallon and Cox.
Critical reception
The programme was well received. It was nominated for a BAFTA awardBritish Academy Television Awards
The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...
in the Best Single Drama category, and won the 1990 award in that category from both the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
and the Broadcasting Press Guild
Broadcasting Press Guild
The Broadcasting Press Guild is a British association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media generally....
. The Sunday Times critic Patrick Stoddart described it as Kosminsky's "first and massively impressive drama". Chris Dunkely of the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
said it was "the sort of programme that makes me want to stand up and cheer", calling it "admirable" and "remarkably even handed", with "splendid performances... and very superior camerawork and editing. Given that Kosminsky has never made a drama before it is an astonishing achievement. But above all a heartening one". Ian Christie in the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
called it remarkable and gripping, concluding that "the film was compelling, the script and direction incisive, the performances first rate". The technical qualities of the film were widely applauded. Mark Sanderson in Time Out noted the challenges the film makers had faced − a vast amount of information to convey, a huge number of real people to present with hardly any time to develop characterisation, an outcome that everybody knew − and considered that writer Michael Eaton had succeeded "triumphantly", using the tense and smoky style of a thriller to establish a nation under siege, "where the spools of the tape recorders never stop turning". Nancy Banks Smith in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
compared the "sense of tension and throttling pressure" of the second part to that of a "Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
by a great master... Will he get them before they get him? Even though you know he won't, you feel he might."
Critics also applauded the dramatic space given to the two contending sides. Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both...
in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
described "Stalker and Sir John Hermon of the RUC, two giants superbly played by Jack Shepherd and T.P. McKenna. Both men are fighting for what they believe to be paramount: Stalker for the objective truth, Hermon for the honour of a police force in what he describes as a jungle". According to Mark Sanderson in Time Out, "both sides are fairly represented". Patrick Stoddart in the Sunday Times agreed: T.P. McKenna as Sir John Hermon had been "forceful", and the film-makers had been "wise" to demonstrate that they "understood the stresses facing members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary" and to "set the investigation against that backdrop". In the end, according to Stoddart, it was "the cock-ups and the cover-ups that really exercised the investigators".
The Guardians Hugo Young
Hugo Young
Hugo John Smelter Young was a British journalist and columnist and senior political commentator at The Guardian.-Early life and education:...
, writing a few months later, called the drama "a brilliant programme... seductively watchable, beautifully filmed, spaciously elaborate in its slow build-up of the characters and evidence on each side of the argument".
But for Young, dramatic balance was not enough, and the skill of execution made the problem he saw even more acute. The drama was not just making an "observation on human affairs as these illuminated the human condition", rather "it purported to be a faithful rendition of events, and the purpose of it was to conduct a forensic inquiry into the moral quality of those events." "[A]ctors playing scripted parts: Sir John Hermon, the RUC chief, Stalker himself, were displayed as if wholly and completely real." He worried that such techniques could be "capable of fatally blurring the line between what is true and what is televisually convenient".
Other critics too had niggling worries about the reality. For example, as Melinda Witstock noted later in The Times, when the film showed an MI5 chief promising to help Stalker, then reaching for a telephone and saying "We have a problem" once Stalker had gone, who could have been present to witness such a call? Or as Hugh Hebert asked in The Guardian, when the film showed a battery genuinely stolen to lure the uniformed RUC men to their deaths, but Stalker's book said the call had been made by a farmer under duress, who is the viewer to believe? For the television dramatist G.F. Newman in Time Out the film did not show the truth − it was Thorburn's truth; and Sheridan Morley cautioned that the film was a drama, not a documentary: "we have no absolute guarantee that it has given us the whole truth".
Nevertheless, along with other critics, Morley appeared to accept the main thrust of the programme, considering that the "contemptuous lack of co-operation by the RUC is indeed terrifying" and the programme usefully illustrated "the contrast between acceptable police behaviour 'on the mainland', as Stalker puts it, and in Ireland, where other laws would seem to obtain."
Outcomes
In the wider debate the broadcast generated rather little controversy or reaction. Perhaps, as Hugo Young wrote, this was because "even the most sensational television programme is dependent on the print media for an afterlife, and the sensible politician understands that by far the most effective neutering tactic is simply not to complain". Patrick Stoddart suggested, calling it a gloomy view, that perhaps simply much of the public was relatively unconcerned about the killing of perceived IRA gunmen, whether or not appropriate warnings had been shouted first.The former RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon continued to dispute the programme's reconstruction of events. The day after transmission he told ITN
Independent Television News
ITN is a news and content provider with headquarters in the United Kingdom. It is made up of four key businesses: ITN News, ITN Source, ITN Productions and ITN Consulting. The ITN logotype can be displayed in any of 4 different colours, each of which represents a business unit. This is the...
's lunchtime news that the programme was "not at all accurate" and "totally without any credibility". In October 1990 he filed suit for libel against Yorkshire Television over the way he personally had been portrayed. According to Kosminsky the action eventually boiled down to "how much cold tea we had put in Jack Hermon's brandy glass". The suit was finally settled out of court in June 1992, Yorkshire Television reputedly having agreed to pay Hermon £50,000. Shoot to Kill has never been re-shown, nor released on video or DVD. ITV refused to allow it to be included in a retrospective season of Kosminsky's work at the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
in 2011.
Stalker had submitted an interim report, setting out the inquiry's progress to September 1985, which ran to 15 bound volumes. It was said to have contained over 40 draft recommendations for changes to operating procedures; and criminal or disciplinary charges against up to 40 members of the RUC. The final Sampson report was submitted in October 1986 and April 1987.
As of 2011 the Stalker and Sampson reports have never been released; but in May 2010 Northern Ireland's senior coroner, who has re-opened an inquest on the killings, had his direction upheld by the High Court to have redacted versions of the reports given to the families of those shot.
Further reading
- Dave Rolinson, 'A documentary of last resort? The case of Shoot to Kill', Journal for the Study of British Cultures, 2010
External links
- Catalogue entries at ITN Source for Shoot to Kill (Part 1), Shoot to Kill (Part 2) and Shoot to Kill: the Issues