New Sky drama covers the Lockerbie disaster and campaigner Dr Jim Swire’s desperate fight for answers.
The new five-episode drama Lockerbie: A Search For Truth follows Dr Jim Swire forced to fight for answers about the fatal crash which killed his daughter Flora on December 21, 1988.
The GP’s daughter Flora travelled on Pan Am Flight 103 to see her American boyfriend when a terrorist bomb on board detonated. The bomb killed 270 people including 11 people on the ground in the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
Colin Firth plays Dr Jim Swire in the new drama, which will be released on Sky and Now on January 2. The Oscar winner met Jim at his home before he started filming.
He recalled about their meeting: “His alertness and intellectual agility were astounding. The script had a real emotional impact on me. I was overwhelmed by the relentless sadness of his journey.”
As the new Sky drama airs, this is where the real life Dr Jim Swire is now with his wife Jane and their children.
Where are Dr Jim Swire and Jane Swire now?
Now aged 88, Dr Jim Swire lives with his wife and former teacher Jane in the Cotswolds. Their two other children William and Catherine are grown up and have their own children.
Catherine Swire wrote about her own experiences around the Lockerbie disaster and reflected on her sister’s death in the book Flame, Ash, Feather: A dozen eggs from Lockerbie.
Dr Swire still actively campaigns for answers about the Lockerbie disaster.
The GP has long believed that the man held responsible for the bombing, Libyan former intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was innocent. He died on May 20, 2012 after being released from prison on compassionate grounds due to his terminal cancer.
Ahead of the new Sky drama, Dr Jim Swire recently told the BBC he hoped the new drama would spark more questions about the disaster and called upon Sir Keir Starmer to publish everything the UK government knows about the disaster.
““One thing we can do is ask the government of today to release all the documentation about Lockerbie,” said the former GP. “That would be a tremendous help. Here we are, 36 years down the road, and we know a lot of material has been kept out of public view.
“Why isn’t it in the public interest to release it after 36 years? I think that’s something a lot of people would think is pretty fishy.”
He added: “The more people look at what happened at Lockerbie the happier I’ll be.
“You can make your own decision about whether you believe the official version or the alternative that we’ve laboured so far to find.
“I hope this the Sky series will do that because I’m getting pretty long in the tooth and I can’t go on doing this forever.”