"Death on the Rock" was a British television documentary broadcast in April 1988, part of Thames Television's current affairs series This Week. The programme examined the killing of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in Gibraltar in March 1988 by the British Special Air Service (SAS), codenamed "Operation Flavius". "Death on the Rock" presented evidence that the IRA members were shot without warning or with their hands up. It was condemned by the British government and denounced in the press as sensationalist. After one of its witnesses retracted his statement, "Death on the Rock" became the first individual documentary to be the subject of an independent inquiry, in which it was largely vindicated.
This Week began investigating the shootings after it emerged that IRA members were not armed or in possession of a bomb, as initially reported. The documentary was broadcast on ITV on 28 April 1988, despite two attempts by the government to have it postponed. Using eyewitness statements, the documentary questioned the government's version of events, and suggested that the three IRA members may have been unlawfully killed. It concluded by putting its findings to a human rights lawyer, who suggested the government should convene a judicial inquiry. Several newspapers attacked the documentary, accusing it of sensationalism and "trial by television".Eckert, p. 138. They mounted a campaign against Carmen Proetta, one of the documentary's witnesses, accusing her of being a former prostitute and of being anti-British; Proetta later successfully sued several newspapers for libel. Other newspapers accused "Death on the Rock" of misrepresenting the eyewitnesses' statements and criticised the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) for allowing it to be broadcast.
Most of the programme's eyewitnesses repeated the statements to the inquest in Gibraltar, but one—who said he had seen a soldier stand over one of the IRA members and fire at the man while he was on the ground—retracted his evidence. As a result, Thames commissioned an independent inquiry—the first independent inquiry into an individual documentary. The Windlesham–Rampton report found that the programme sought to raise questions rather than to reach a conclusion. The authors made several criticisms of the documentary, but overall found it a "trenchant" work of journalism, made in "good faith and without ulterior motives". Thames lost its broadcasting rights and the IBA was abolished as a result of the Broadcasting Act 1990—decisions which several involved parties believed were influenced by the government's anger at "Death on the Rock".
Background This Week This Week was a current affairs television series that began in 1956. In 1978, it was renamed TV Eye and took on a slightly lighter format; the title This Week was restored in 1986, after which it became steadily more journalistic. The programme was broadcast simultaneously across the ITV regions and became a mainstay of ITV's current affairs programming. By 1988, the programme had interviewed several prime ministers and leaders of the opposition, including Margaret Thatcher (the incumbent prime minister), who had been interviewed for three full episodes.Windlesham & Rampton, pp. 15–17.
Gibraltar shootings
On 6 March 1988, three members of an IRA Active Service Unit—Daniel McCann, Mairead Farrell, and Sean Savage—were witnessed parking a car in a car park in Gibraltar; the car park was used as an assembly area for British soldiers preparing for the weekly "changing of the guard" ceremony outside the Convent (the residence of the governor of Gibraltar). The three were suspected by the British authorities of being part of a plot to detonate a car bomb in the car park while it was full of soldiers preparing for the ceremony; while the suspects were walking back towards the Spanish border, they were shot dead by British soldiers, members of the Special Air Service. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, the British government released a statement to the effect that a large car bomb had been found in Gibraltar, and that three suspected terrorists had been shot dead by the Gibraltar Police.Eckert, p. 88. 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 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".Eckert, pp. 86–87.
The following day, Sir Geoffrey Howe, the British foreign secretary, made a statement to the House of Commons regarding the shootings, in which he informed the house that the IRA members were unarmed, and that the car parked in the assembly area did not contain an explosive device. Howe stated that the IRA members "made movements which led the military personnel, operating in support of the Gibraltar Police, to conclude that their own lives and the lives of others were under threat". "In light of this response", Howe continued, "they were shot" by "military personnel, operating in support of the Gibraltar Police". Subsequent inquiries led to the discovery of a large quantity of explosives in Marbella ( from Gibraltar), along with detonators and timers.Crawshaw & Holmström, p. 92.
Investigation This Week editor, Roger Bolton, initially believed there was little merit in investigating the shootings. Based on the official account of events that was presented in the immediate aftermath of the shootings, Bolton believed that most people would think the IRA members "deserved what they got".Eckert, p. 87. Bolton's interest was piqued by Howe's statement, and the revelation in it that the deceased were unarmed and were not in possession of a bomb. Shortly afterwards, he dispatched two of This Weeks journalists, Julian Manyon and Chris Oxley, to Gibraltar and Spain (respectively) to gather more information on the shootings.Eckert, p. 89. Bolton believed that the Milltown Cemetery attack and the corporals killings, two events in Belfast which resulted from the Gibraltar killings, provided "even more compelling reasons" to investigate the shootings; the team considered switching the focus of the programme to the effects the shootings had in Belfast, but decided to continue with the original project.Bolton, pp. 203, 205.
Gibraltar
Oxley was surprised to learn that the Gibraltar Police were handling the police investigation into the shootings, having been closely involved in the events leading up to them. He grew concerned that the police investigation was insufficiently rigorous when he learned that the police had not taken statements from residents whose flats overlooked the scene of Farrell's and McCann's deaths. The Gibraltar coroner, Felix Pizzarello, welcomed This Weeks investigation and hoped it would uncover witnesses who could assist the inquest.Eckert, p. 119. Manyon travelled to Madrid to learn more about the surveillance operation. 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.Eckert, pp. 119–120. 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. Both witnesses' statements appeared to be inconsistent with the official account of the shootings.Eckert, pp. 120–123.
The journalists engaged Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, GC, as a ballistics expert. Styles was a retired British Army officer who had served as a bomb-disposal officer in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He inspected the car park where Savage had parked the car, then walked through the town along what the journalists believed was the IRA members' most likely route. When asked his opinion by the journalists, Styles cast doubt on the authorities' stated reasons for the shootings. He explained that, had Savage's car contained a substantial bomb, the weight would have been evident on the vehicle's springs. Styles also felt that a potential bomb was unlikely to have been detonated with a remote detonator on account of the buildings between the scenes of the shootings and the likelihood that it would be drowned out by other radio signals in the area. 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.Eckert, p. 124.
As Styles was examining the ricochet marks, Cahn was approached by an elderly woman, who led her to a nearby apartment building. There, the woman introduced Cahn to her daughter—Carmen Proetta—who told Cahn that she had witnessed the shooting at the petrol station; although initially reluctant, she gave her account in an affidavit. Proetta asserted that, immediately before McCann and Farrell were shot, she saw a police car travelling north on Winston Churchill Avenue with its siren activated; as she watched, the police car stopped abruptly and four men—one uniformed police officer and three men in civilian clothes—jumped out. She stated that the plain-clothed men, all carrying pistols, leapt across the central reservation barrier, at which point she saw McCann and Farrell raise their hands. She believed the three men then opened fire, while McCann and Farrell had their hands in the air, and that neither made any movements towards their clothing or Farrell's handbag. One of the men then crouched over McCann and Farrell while they were on the ground, and continued to shoot them.Eckert, pp. 125–126. Proetta's account of the shooting tallied with conclusions Styles drew from bullet marks at the petrol station. Styles also found her description of the bullets striking the bodies convincing, believing that only somebody who had witnessed a shooting would be able to describe it so vividly. Proetta's account of the soldiers arriving in a police car matched some of the newspaper reports from the day after the shootings.Eckert, p. 127.Bolton, p. 16.
Cahn traced two further witnesses to the shootings—Diana Treacy, who said she had seen the soldiers shooting Savage in the back without warning and continuing to shoot him while he was on the ground, and Kenneth Asquez, who had provided a hand-written, unsigned statement, but was extremely reluctant to be filmed or named as a witness. He had come to the attention of the journalists through another witness, who provided Cahn with a video recording of the aftermath of the shootings.Eckert, pp. 128–129. The journalists approached the witness through a second intermediary and received a typed but unsigned affidavit. In both documents, Asquez stated that he had been a passenger in a car that was passing the scene of Savage's shooting; he described seeing Savage lying on the ground with a soldier standing over him, and witnessing the soldier shoot Savage "two or three times at point-blank range" while the latter was on the ground.Eckert, p. 130. The journalists failed to persuade Asquez to sign his affidavit, but decided to incorporate it into the programme nonetheless.
Spain