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“All I was after was the truth,” says Dr Jim Swire.

The retired GP’s 35-year search for answers has seen him board a US-bound flight from Heathrow carrying a replica bomb, hold a secret meeting with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and collapse in shock after a criminal trial at a former military base in the Netherlands.

His 23-year-old daughter was among the 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing on 21 December 1988 – the deadliest ever UK terrorist attack.

“I think I know who was responsible for killing her and I think I can prove it,” the old Etonian, now 87, says in a new four-part Sky documentary.

He keeps the evidence he has collected in cardboard folders in a metal filing cabinet in an office in the Cotswolds home he shares with his wife Jane.

‘No one had really heard of Lockerbie’

Flora “was everything a parent could wish for,” says Mrs Swire.

She was about to turn 24 and studying medicine when she set off to the US to meet her boyfriend for Christmas.

“Everything was booked up, except there were plenty of seats available on a certain flight known as Pan Am 103,” says Dr Swire, sitting in a leather armchair in his cottage, overlooking the rugged coastline on the Isle of Skye.

Less than 40 minutes after taking off from Heathrow on the transatlantic leg to New York’s JFK, the Boeing 747 was 31,000ft over the Scottish town of Lockerbie when the aircraft was almost instantly destroyed by a massive blast.

The wrecked nose section of the Pan-Am Boeing 747 lies in a Scottish field at Lockerbie, near Dumfries
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The wrecked nose section of the Pan-Am Boeing 747 lies in a Scottish field at Lockerbie, near Dumfries

Residents remember “a huge explosion” before the sky lit up with “bright red flames” and a “great big mushroom ball of fire”.

“Before 1988, no one had really heard of Lockerbie,” says Colin Dorrance, who was a young 19-year-old recruit just three months into his police career at the time.

“Life here was just undramatic.”

That all changed at 7.03pm that evening. All 259 passengers and crew members on board the plane were killed along with 11 people in the town as windows were blown in and wreckage destroyed their homes.

Locals are still haunted by images of the bodies that fell from the sky, some still strapped in their seats as they landed in gardens and fields.

The smell of aviation fuel hung thick in the air as they surveyed the carnage strewn with luggage and the Christmas presents victims were carrying for loved ones.

270 people died on 21 December 1988
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270 people died on 21 December 1988

Peter Giesecke can’t shake the image of the woman still wearing one high-heeled shoe, while Margaret and Hugh Connell became “attached” to the man they found in a field near their home, watching over him for 24 hours until his body was recovered.

“We developed quite a love for ‘our boy’, not knowing who he was,” says Mr Connell.

As news of the disaster broke, relatives were desperate to know whether their loved ones were on board.

Unable to get through to Heathrow, Dr Swire rang the Pan Am desk in New York and could hear “chaos in the background and women screaming” as families of the victims, many of whom were American, received the terrible news.

Dr Swire, tall and slim with a full head of white hair, is measured as he recalls the kindness of the pathologist who allowed him to see his daughter’s body in the local ice rink, where the postmortems were being carried out.

“She was barely recognisable,” he says, the grief which still bubbles just under the surface after all these years coming to the fore as he tells how he was allowed to take a lock of Flora’s hair.

“Human kindness can be very important when these things happen,” he adds, with tears in his eyes.

Jim and Jane Swire
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Jim and Jane Swire

‘Nothing quite adds up’

It took investigators a week to discover the disaster was caused by a bomb in a terrorist attack against the US – the biggest in the country’s history until 9/11.

“My first reaction was of fury, which led me to want to find the truth,” says Dr Swire. And that did a lot to help with the grief because I was busy doing things. It was rather how, I think, Flora would’ve reacted.”

The prime suspect was Iran, but they have always denied any involvement in the attack.

Iran had vowed to take revenge for the accidental downing of an Iran Air passenger flight by the US Navy in the Gulf in July 1988, which killed 290 people.

But the sprawling international investigation was just beginning.

“Nothing is what it seems in the Lockerbie story, nothing quite adds up,” says local reporter David Johnston, one of the first journalists on the scene.

It soon emerged a call was made to the US embassy in the Finnish capital that a Pan Am plane from Frankfurt to the US would be bombed in what was known as the “Helsinki warning”, with American diplomats in Europe told of a threat.

Passengers and luggage were transferred at Heathrow to Pan Am 103 from a feeder flight originating in Frankfurt and Dr Swire believes the plane was only two-thirds full because people were “warned off”. “We weren’t warned. Nobody told us,” he says.

“I felt I had a right to know the truth about how my daughter had come to be killed and why she wasn’t protected against being killed. And those were the bases on which we very soon found we were being richly and profusely deceived by the authorities.”

Flowers at the commemoration service
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Flowers at the 2018 commemoration service

The ‘biggest crime scene in history’

Wreckage from the plane was spread over 845 square miles in what Richard Marquise, who headed up the FBI Lockerbie taskforce, describes as “the biggest crime scene in history”.

Investigators concluded the bomb was in a cassette player that was wrapped in clothes and put inside a brown hard-sided Samsonite suitcase.

A fragment of Toshiba circuit board pointed to possible links to tape recorder bombs made by Iran-backed PLFP-GC, a Palestinian terror group active in the 1970s and 1980s, who were suspected of carrying out the attack for the Iranians.

Dr Swire took his own replica bomb – the explosive material substituted for marzipan – on a plane from Heathrow to the US to highlight the security flaws.

“It was an obsession,” he admits. “All I was after was the truth of why our beautiful daughter had been murdered and I was bloody determined to find out who did it.”

The kindness of the women in Lockerbie

Meanwhile, in Lockerbie volunteers were cleaning the mud, blood and aviation fuel from the victims’ belongings left scattered amid the wreckage and bodies.

Clothes were washed, pressed and folded, jewellery was polished, and the pages of a tattered bible were individually ironed.

Miami-based Victoria Cummock, whose husband John died on board, was surprised to receive his clean laundry.

“I got back his personal effects due to the kindness of the women in Lockerbie,” she says.

Victoria Cummock
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Victoria Cummock

The Malta connection and the Libyans

Charred clothes which were packed with the bomb were traced to a shop in Malta, and two Libyan suspects came into the FBI’s sights.

Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya had a motive for the attack after an American bombing in capital Tripoli and a tiny fragment of circuit board, called PT35, found embedded in a shirt collar 20 miles from Lockerbie, was traced to Swiss electronics expert Edwin Bollier, who said he sold a batch of timers to the rogue state.

After CIA asset Majid Giaka, a Libyan double agent codenamed “Puzzle Piece”, said he saw the suspects with a brown suitcase at Malta airport the day before the bombing, two men were charged.

But there was little hope of Colonel Gaddafi handing over Abdelbaset al Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, a security official for Libyan Arab Airlines, to face trial.

Telling only his wife for fear he would be intercepted by the security services, Dr Swire travelled to Libya to meet the dictator face to face in an attempt to persuade him.

“I was pretty crazy at that time,” he says. “I was so determined that I wasn’t scared, nervous yes, but not scared.”

Dr Swire says he heard the “click, click, click” of Gaddafi’s female soldiers readying their AK47s as he opened his briefcase to reveal pictures of his daughter, then again at the end of the meeting when he pinned a badge reading “Lockerbie the truth must be known” to the Libyan leader’s lapel.

The meeting had no obvious impact, and it was not until 11 years after the bombing that Gaddafi finally agreed to extradite the suspects in the face of tough economic sanctions imposed in response to the atrocity.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA- MARCH 29: Libya's President Muammar Gaddafi looks on at the opening of the two-day Arab Summit in Damascus, Syria March 29, 2008. The Arab summit will be held in the Syrian capital from March 29-30. (Photo by Salah Malkawi/ Getty Images)
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Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed by rebel forces in 2011

‘The shock was so great I collapsed’

The trial was held at former US Airforce base Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands, under Scottish law, and Dr Swire rented an apartment with Rev John Mosey, whose 19-year-old daughter Helga died on board Pan Am 103, to follow the evidence closely over 84 days.

Supergrass Giaka crumbled in the witness box as he was shown to be a liar and a fantasist, while Bollier couldn’t confirm he supplied the bomb timer to Libya.

“I couldn’t continue to believe that there was a cogent body of evidence that justifies the finding of either of those two men guilty,” says Dr Swire.

John Mosey
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John Mosey

The Scottish judges cleared Fhimah but found al Megrahi guilty of 270 counts of murder for which he was later handed a life sentence.

“The shock of the verdict initially was so great I collapsed,” says Dr Swire.

Families of the American victims were pleased with the guilty verdict and FBI agents felt vindicated by the finding Libya was behind the bombing.

But Dr Swire “couldn’t believe three senior Scottish judges could convict someone on that evidence”, which he believes to be “false” in order to frame Libya to protect the West’s fragile relationship with Iran.

“I wasn’t prepared to have anything associated with Flora’s death as untrue and debasing as the story that was raised by the authorities against those two men,” he says.

“I was very shaken up psychologically by the fact I knew al Megrahi was innocent, and the authorities protected her killers.”

Sky News has contacted the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service for a response.

The cockpit section of the Pan Am Boeing 747 lies on Banks Hill near Lockerbie
Image:
The cockpit section of the Pan Am Boeing 747 lies on Banks Hill near Lockerbie

‘The truth is very simple’

In 2009, al Megrahi was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds after he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, having spent just nine years behind bars.

But some believe he was freed in exchange for an oil deal with Libya.

He received a hero’s welcome when he landed back home with Scottish flags waved as he got off the plane.

Families of the American victims were disgusted but Dr Swire was happy and even visited him before he died in 2012.

From his Zurich office, Mr Bollier now claims the PT35 fragment is a fake and says he believes police tampered with the evidence.

He also says he was shown a brochure with two briefcases full of cash and offered 4 million US dollars by Mr Marquise, but the ex-FBI agent insists he didn’t offer him “one cent”.

For Dr Swire “the truth is very simple but the consequences of trying to conceal the truth are very complicated”.

“I think she (Flora) was killed by a bomb which was ordained by the Iranian authorities,” he says.

“They had had an Airbus destroyed by an American missile and 290 people killed. Therefore, they were lusting for revenge.”

Jim Swire
Image:
Jim Swire

Former CIA operations officer John Holt, the one-time handler of Giaka, agrees. “I have no doubt it was Iran,” he says, adding that the PLFP-GC carried out the attack on their behalf.

However, most people still believe the official narrative and Libya has officially accepted responsibility, agreeing to a $2.7bn (£1.95bn) compensation deal with the victims’ families, albeit with expectations sanctions would be lifted.

Dr Swire’s search for answers continues as the alleged bombmaker Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir al Marimi is in US custody awaiting trial accused of being the third man involved in the terrorist attack.

Back in Lockerbie, the Connells did find out who their “boy” was – New Yorker Frank Ciulla.

The couple have formed a lasting friendship with his widow Mary Lou Ciulla and daughter Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, who are greeted with warm smiles and hugs as they step into their home from the Scottish drizzle.

“I felt that he was alone somewhere and yet when I came here, he wasn’t alone,” says Mrs Ciulla, her friend Mrs Connell’s arm around her shoulder. “Mine was actually… a nice story.”

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Heidi Alexander says ‘fairness’ will be government’s ‘guiding principle’ when it comes to taxes at next budget

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Heidi Alexander says 'fairness' will be government's 'guiding principle' when it comes to taxes at next budget

Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.

Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.

Politics Hub: Catch up on the latest

Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.

Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.

“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”

Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.

“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”

Read more:
Reeves won’t rule out tax rises

What is a wealth tax and how would it work?

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈      

Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”

He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.

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Chris Philp also criticsed the government’s migration deal with France

Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.

Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.

Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.

With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.

The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.

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Justice system ‘frustrating’, Met Police chief says – as he admits London’s ‘shameful’ racism challenge

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Justice system 'frustrating', Met Police chief says - as he admits London's 'shameful' racism challenge

It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.

In a wide-ranging interview with Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the commissioner said that relations with minority communities are “difficult for us”, while also speaking about the state of the justice system and the size of the police force.

Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.

“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”

He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.

However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”

Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.

“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.

“The challenge for us is, as we reach in to tackle those issues, that confrontation that comes from that reaching in, whether it’s stop and search on the streets or the sort of operations you seek.

“The danger is that’s landing in an environment with less trust.

“And that makes it even harder. But the people who win out of that [are] all of the criminals.”

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said racism is still an issue in the force
Image:
Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley

The commissioner added: “I’m so determined to find a way to get past this because if policing in black communities can find a way to confront these issues, together we can give black boys growing up in London equal life chances to white boys, which is not what we’re seeing at the moment.

“And it’s not simply about policing, is it?”

Sir Mark said: “I think black boys are several times more likely to be excluded from school, for example, than white boys.

“And there are multiple issues layered on top of each other that feed into disproportionality.”

‘We’re stretched, but there’s hope and determination’

Sir Mark said the Met is a “stretched service” but people who call 999 can expect an officer to attend.

“If you are in the middle of a crisis and something awful is happening and you dial 999, officers will get there really quickly,” Sir Mark said.

“I don’t pretend we’re not a stretched service.

“We are smaller than I think we ought to be, but I don’t want to give a sort of message of a lack of hope or a lack of determination.”

“I’ve seen the mayor and the home secretary fighting hard for police resourcing,” he added.

“It’s not what I’d want it to be, but it’s better than it might be without their efforts.”

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How police tracked and chased suspected phone thief

‘Close to broken’ justice system facing ‘awful’ delays

Sir Mark said the criminal justice system was “close to broken” and can be “frustrating” for police officers.

“The thing that is frustrating is that the system – and no system can be perfect – but when the system hasn’t managed to turn that person’s life around and get them on the straight and narrow, and it just becomes a revolving door,” he said.

“When that happens, of course that’s frustrating for officers.

“So the more successful prisons and probation can be in terms of getting people onto a law-abiding life from the path they’re on, the better.

“But that is a real challenge. I mean, we’re talking just after Sir Brian Leveson put his report out about the close-to-broken criminal justice system.

“And it’s absolutely vital that those repairs and reforms that he’s talking about happen really quickly, because the system is now so stressed.”

Giving an example, the police commissioner went on: “We’ve got Snaresbrook [Crown Court] in London – it’s now got more than 100 cases listed for 2029.”

Sir Mark asked Trevor Phillips to imagine he had been the victim of a crime, saying: “We’ve caught the person, we’ve charged him, ‘great news, Mr Phillips, we’ve got him charged, they’re going to court’.

“And then a few weeks later, I see the trial’s listed for 2029. That doesn’t feel great, does it?”

Asked about the fact that suspects could still be on the streets for years before going to trial, Sir Mark conceded it’s “pretty awful”.

He added: “If it’s someone on bail, who might have stolen your phone or whatever, and they’re going in for a criminal court trial, that could be four years away. And that’s pretty unacceptable, isn’t it?”

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Leveson explains plans to fix justice system

Challenge to reform the Met

The Met chief’s comments come two years after an official report found the force is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.

Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.

At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Baroness Casey insisted the Met deserved.

However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.

A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.

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UK measles cases rising among children – with leading NHS hospital ‘concerned’

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UK measles cases rising among children - with leading NHS hospital 'concerned'

A leading NHS hospital has warned measles is on the rise among children in the UK, after treating 17 cases since June.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool said it is “concerned” about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting the highly contagious virus.

It said the cases it has treated since June were for effects and complications of the disease, which, in rare cases, can be fatal if left untreated.

“We are concerned about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting measles. Measles is a highly contagious viral illness which can cause children to be seriously unwell, requiring hospital treatment, and in rare cases, death,” the hospital said in a statement to Sky News.

In a separate open letter to parents and carers in Merseyside earlier this month, Alder Hey, along with the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) and directors of Public Health for Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley, warned the increase in measles in the region could be down to fewer people getting vaccinated.

The letter read: “We are seeing more cases of measles in our children and young people because fewer people are having the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles and two other viruses called mumps and rubella.

“Children in hospital, who are very poorly for another reason, are at higher risk of catching the virus.”

What are the symptoms of measles?

The first symptoms of measles include:

• A high temperature

• A runny or blocked nose

• Sneezing

• A cough

• Red, sore or watery eyes

Cold-like symptoms are followed a few days later by a rash, which starts on the face and behind the ears, before it spreads.

The spots are usually raised and can join together to form blotchy patches which are not usually itchy.

Some people may get small spots in their mouth too.

What should you do if you think your child has measles?

Ask for an urgent GP appointment or call 111 if you think your child has measles.

If your child has been vaccinated, it is very unlikely they have measles.

You should not go to the doctor without calling ahead, as measles is very infectious.

If your child is diagnosed with measles by a doctor, make sure they avoid close contact with babies and anyone who is pregnant or has a weakened immune system.

The skin of a patient after 3 days of measles infection
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The skin of a patient after three days of measles infection

It comes after a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) report released earlier this month determined that uptake of vaccines in the UK has stalled over the last decade and is, in many cases, declining.

It said none of the routine childhood vaccinations have met the 95% coverage target since 2021, putting youngsters at risk of measles, meningitis and whooping cough.

The MMR vaccine has been available through the NHS for years. Two doses gives lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella.

File photo of a MMR vaccine
Image:
Two doses of the MMR vaccine give lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella. Pic: iStock

According to the latest NHS data, Liverpool was one of the cities outside London with the lowest uptake of the MMR vaccination in 2023-2024.

By the time children were five years old, 86.5% had been give one dose, decreasing to 73.4% for a second dose.

The RCPCH report put the nationwide decline down to fears over vaccinations, as well as families having trouble booking appointments and a lack of continuous care in the NHS, with many seeing a different GP on each visit.

Read more from Sky News:
Met Police chief on London’s ‘shameful’ racism challenge
‘My voice box was removed after NHS missed cancer’

In the US, measles cases are at their highest in more than three decades.

Cases reached 1,288 on Wednesday this week, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, with 14 states battling active outbreaks.

The largest outbreak started five months ago in communities in West Texas, where vaccination uptake is low. Since then, three people have died – including two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico – with dozens more in hospital.

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