ITV Documentaries

Death On The Rock (1988x1)

Uitzenddatum: Apr 28, 1988

A ground-breaking TV documentary examining the shooting of three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar by members of the British Special Air Service (SAS). While on a mission to attack British troops in the mid-1980s, members of the Irish Republican Army were shot and killed before they had a chance to detonate over 100 pounds of explosives alongside a British military meeting point. However, the British current affairs programme This Week examined evidence that the IRA terrorists were not given the option to surrender when they were approached by the SAS and that they were essentially executed in the middle of the street. At the time, the British government attempted to block the broadcast of this programme, but when that attempt failed and the broadcast went ahead, the company involved in the broadcast - Thames Television - lost its London ITV franchise three years later, a regulatory action which many thought was directly influenced by the adverse impact of the documentary on Margaret Thatcher's government.