Death on the Rock

The programme examined the killing of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in Gibraltar in March 1988 by the British Special Air Service (codenamed "Operation Flavius").

[4] That evening, British television news reported the finding of the alleged car bomb, and added that the IRA members had been involved in a "shootout" with authorities.

All of Britain's daily newspapers covered the shootings the following morning, several of which cited the size of the alleged car bomb as 500 pounds (230 kg) and wrote that it was "packed with shrapnel".

The same morning, Ian Stewart, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, told BBC Radio 4 that "military personnel were involved" in the shootings, and that "a car bomb was found, which has been defused".

Bolton added Alison Cahn to the team on 18 March; her task was to visit the flats which overlooked the scene of the shootings and interview any eyewitnesses.

[11] The team found two eyewitnesses who were willing to speak on camera—Stephen Bullock, a local lawyer who had witnessed the events while out for a walk with his wife, and Josie Celecia, a housewife who had seen the shooting of McCann and Savage from her apartment window.

Finally, the journalists asked Styles to examine the scenes of the shootings, including ricochet marks on the pumps at the petrol station where McCann and Farrell were shot.

In place of such a conclusion, Bolton approached George Carman—a leading London lawyer specialising in human rights issues—who agreed to be interviewed for the programme.

[39] Manyon continued to narrate as the programme reconstructed the IRA team's movements through Gibraltar towards the border until McCann and Farrell reached a petrol station on Winston Churchill Avenue.

Celecia described witnessing McCann and Farrell walking along Winston Churchill Avenue before hearing several shots, and then seeing a soldier continue to fire at the pair while they were on the ground.

Proetta told the programme she saw a police car arrive opposite the petrol station, that three armed men in plain clothes then disembarked, jumped across the central barrier, and shot McCann and Farrell while the latter had their hands up.

[41] Styles told Manyon he believed it unlikely that the IRA would have succeeded in detonating a bomb in the assembly area from the petrol station where McCann and Farrell were shot (a distance of approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km)).

He opined that a more powerful judicial enquiry, possibly headed by a British High Court judge, would be better equipped to eliminate the inconsistencies between the official version of events and the eyewitness statements.

The Daily Mail's main headline read "fury over SAS 'trial by TV'", while in an inside article, it called the programme "woefully one-sided",[48] and accused Bolton of having previously collaborated with the IRA for sensational news stories.

[52][53][54] Several stories also attempted to portray Proetta as anti-British, including one in the broadsheet The Daily Telegraph which said she was one of the 44 people who voted to end the British administration in Gibraltar's 1967 referendum.

Styles was said to be aggrieved that two of his "key opinions" had been omitted from the version broadcast—specifically that what Proetta interpreted as a gesture of surrender may have been an involuntary reaction to the bullets striking the suspects' bodies, and that the IRA members could still have detonated a bomb in another vehicle parked on the Spanish side of the border.

Styles' view was one of "two active service units waging war [...] taking [the IRA members] out quickly, cleanly, and without other people being hurt[note 5]—that seems to be the only way".

[65] One of the first civilians to give evidence was Allen Feraday, an explosives expert who worked for the Ministry of Defence (MoD); he confirmed Styles' contribution to the documentary—that the IRA had not been known to use a remote-detonated bomb without a direct line of sight to their target.

When the witnesses from "Death on the Rock" were called, Stephen Bullock told the coroner that he saw McCann and Savage raise their hands before seeing the SAS shoot them at point-blank range.

[69] When Asquez reluctantly appeared, he retracted the statements he had given to the journalists, which he said he had made up after "pestering" from Major Bob Randall (who had sold the programme a video recording of the aftermath of the shootings).

The commission's report found no violation of Article 2, but referred the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a final decision.

[73][74] The court rejected the families' submission that the British government had conspired to kill the three, but did find a violation of Article 2 in the defective planning and control of the operation.

[73] Following Asquez's retraction of his statement and his allegation that he was pressured into giving a false account of the events he witnessed, the IBA contacted Thames to express its concern and to raise the possibility of an investigation into the making of the documentary.

[78] The report found that the tendency of the evidence presented in the programme was to suggest the terrorists had been unlawfully killed, and that it did not explore alternative explanations in any depth.

[81] The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) made representations to the inquiry that "Death on the Rock" could potentially have had an adverse effect on the inquest on the same grounds that Howe had attempted to delay the broadcast.

Considering this submission, the report agreed with the opinions of lawyers consulted by Thames and the IBA that "Death on the Rock" was safe to be broadcast on 28 April 1988.

[2] In conclusion, the authors believed that "Death on the Rock" proved that "freedom of expression can prevail in the most extensive, and the most immediate, of all the means of mass communication".

BBC Northern Ireland produced an episode of Spotlight which arrived at similar findings to those of This Week; Howe attempted to have the programme delayed, using the same rationale with which he requested "Death on the Rock" be postponed.

[91][92] Academic Christian Potschka described "Death on the Rock" as part of a decade of "unprecedented conflict between government and broadcasters over ... investigative documentaries".

[58][94][95] Lord Thomson, chairman of the IBA, believed the dispute between the government and the authority had a "very substantial influence on Mrs Thatcher's attitude towards broadcasting policy",[96] which led her to the belief that Thames' franchise should not be renewed.