A FORMER Bromsgrove GP’s heart-wrenching quest for the truth after his daughter was killed in the Lockerbie bombing is the inspiration for a forthcoming TV mini series.
Dr Jim Swire, aged 86, has devoted his life to searching for answers since losing his beloved daughter Flora in the 1988 air disaster.
It was the eve of Flora's 24th birthday when a bomb went off on December 21, less than 40 minutes into the London to New York flight, killing all 259 on board Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.
Dr Swire, who lived in Bromsgrove before moving to Chipping Camden, has been on a relentless mission ever since to try to find out the truth about what happened - together with wife Jane, aged 83.
His campaign led to meetings with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and successive British Prime Ministers before Libyan national Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted 13 years later. He was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 before passing away from cancer in 2012 but Dr Squire always believed he was innocent.
Instead, he has come to believe the bombing was linked to Iran - not Libya…carried out in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian passenger airline which was accidentally shot down by the US Navy in July 1988 and covered up by the authorities.
The story of his painstaking search for answers is told in a book entitled The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice, which Dr Swire wrote together with retired health service worker turned writer Peter Biddulph.
After first meeting in 1999, the pair spent more than two decades working on the book, which was finally published in May 2021.
Mr Biddulph, aged 82, who lived in the Bromsgrove area before moving to Stourbridge, said: "I thought I'd just got to tell this man's story."
Since hitting book stores, the story has now been picked up to be turned into a five-part TV series.
Academy Award-nominated writers Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) and Kirsten Sheridan are taking on the tale - a co-production between Carnival Pictures, Universal Content Productions and Sky Studios which is expected to air on Sky next year.
Dr Swire said of the proposed mini series which is set to be filmed this summer: “If it increases people’s knowledge and exposes the truth I shall be very proud.”
The retired GP said his search for answers has destroyed his faith in government.
He said British authorities were warned there could be an incident involving an aircraft “down to the details of the type of bomb going to be used” but he added: “No real action was taken to try to protect the aircraft.”
Dr Swire said: “It’s been 34 years since the disaster happened and we found out the hard way it was entirely preventable.
“There never has been an inquiry, except the police inquiry by the Scottish Police which made serious mistakes itself.
“I’ll be pleased that as many ordinary citizens of this country and America should know something of the background as to how this atrocity came to be carried out and start asking questions about why it wasn’t prevented when all this knowledge was available.
“I’ve ended up from all this with a profound distrust of the government and intelligence services of the UK and America.”
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