Trigger Point – how true is it to real-life bomb disposal? Explosives experts have their say
First it was bent coppers, now it’s explosives planted around London – Vicky McClure’s characters never have it easy.
The BAFTA-winning actress is currently on screen as Lana Washington in the second series of ITV drama Trigger Point, leading a team of bomb disposal experts – or “expos” – working for the Met Police.
Written by Daniel Brierley, it’s another series executive produced by Jed Mercurio, the man behind Line Of Duty. While it hasn’t quite reached the same fevered levels of fandom just yet, the first season was a ratings winner and a linear TV draw for viewers tuning in to see what – or who – will face an explosive end each Sunday night.
Warning – contains spoilers
Stay away from the lift shaft: McClure and co-star Mark Stanley as DCI Thom Youngblood. Pic: ITV
The penultimate episode airs this evening and the tension has ramped up; Lana has faced car park bombs, disused tube station bombs and laptop bombs – not to mention her detective ex being pushed down a lift shaft by a woman disguised as a firefighter checking the scene, right after their romance had been rekindled.
But how good is Trigger Point at getting the work of a real-life expo right?
Major Chris Hunter, who spent years in bomb disposal for the army and the Special Forces – and whose work inspired the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker – has written books including Extreme Risk and Eight Lives Down.
He now works for an NGO clearing explosives from conflict zones and has been watching Trigger Point in Iraq. While he wasn’t too impressed with the first series, he says things have vastly improved second time round.
“You can’t help sort of looking at the technical aspects of it and critiquing it,” he told Sky News. “And I think a lot of the aspects are really technically on the ball [in series two].”
‘Absence of the normal, presence of the abnormal’
Experts agree the second series is more true to life than the first. Pic: ITV
There’s still “a little bit of running around, a little bit of shouting” in the show, he understates it, but appreciates you need this to make a drama. In reality, he says it’s not so chaotic.
“We don’t do that as bomb techs, we just don’t shout. We don’t run around. We don’t run towards a bomb, we don’t run away from a bomb. Everything is calculated. Everything. You’re constantly going through this threat assessment.
“When you turn up at a bomb scene, you’ve got to draw on your experience, you’ve got to draw on your intelligence, your intellect, your IQ. You’ve got to draw on your intuition as well, because you’ve never got 100% of the threat picture, if you like. So you have to make a plan based on what information you’ve got.
“It’s cold, it’s calculating, it’s thorough. And then you’ve got to walk up to that bomb – and I say walk, you don’t run up to a bomb, ever. You walk up to that bomb and as you’re walking up to it, you’re continually refining that threat assessment. You’re looking at the environment. You’re looking at the atmospherics. You’re taking in every single aspect of the information around you.
“You’re looking at absence of the normal, you’re looking at presence of the abnormal. And as you take each step towards that bomb, you’re constantly updating the threat picture. Is there something right, is there something wrong?”
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You have to think about intent, he adds, and what type of bomb you’re dealing with. “Is it time? Is it command? Is it victim-operated? And you constantly hear Vicky McClure’s character asking that question and that’s really good to see as well, they’ve absolutely got that right. And then finally when you get up to the bomb, that’s when you’ve built up most of your threat picture.”
In this series, drones have been used in an attack on Washington and her team.
“Drone warfare is very much at the forefront of what we do,” says Chris. “So I think that’s something they’ve got absolutely right, it’s definitely in every aspect of conflict. It’s something we’re seeing now, and it’s something we’re going to see 100% in the future. I think they’ve done a really good job at looking at the current technologies and how to turn those into IEDs and threats, and a good sort of analysis of future technologies as well. Things that are just around the corner.”
‘I can suspend my disbelief’
Kerry Godliman stars alongside McClure as data analyst Sonya. Pic: ITV
Lucy Lewis, the army’s first female bomb disposal expert, says there are parts the show gets right and parts it gets wrong – but these things are often incorrect on purpose.
“In these kinds of shows you have to get some bits wrong so they can never be mistaken as a documentary,” she says. “When it’s a police [or military] uniform, you have to get something visually wrong so there’s no way snippets could be mistaken for the real thing.” For example, in the recent police procedural series Vigil, she points out, military badges read “British Air Force” and not “Royal Air Force”.
In Trigger Point, as there are no distinguishing badges for the expos they often have their radios upside down, “which I find really annoying”, she says, “but it’s because there’s nothing else they can really ‘get wrong’, visually”.
Lucy has written a book about her work, titled Lighting The Fuse, and says there has been renewed interest since Trigger Point debuted six months later, such is the fascination with the show. She says she has watched it “between my fingers and shouted at the telly quite a lot” at some points.
“It must be the same for police watching police [portrayed in TV dramas], medics watching medics,” she says. “But I love watching Vicky McClure and I think Jed Mercurio is really good. I watch for quality of the drama rather than technical aspects. But this series is better than the first, and I can suspend my disbelief.”
In real life, bomb disposal work is “very boring, lots of hanging about”, she says. “There’s a small crack and a puff of smoke and nothing happens. They’ve made it very dramatic in Trigger Point – every explosion is always a fireball.”
‘It’s a problem that needs to be dealt with’
McClure and co-star Nabil Elhouahabi, who plays Hass. Pic: ITV
But rather than being annoyed at the exaggerations, Lucy enjoys “the drama of it”. And to critics on social media who have questioned certain actions, such as Lana sometimes removing her helmet when searching for explosive devices, she says this does happen. “We do take our helmets off to look under cars,” she says. “And we do use fibreoptics to look inside things. They’ve also done the controlled explosions right, pretty much. But there’s a lot more snipping of the red wire than really goes on.”
Most people would say bomb disposal experts must need nerves of steel, but Lucy is having none of it. “Not at all – it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with. For me, the worst part was always the journey there, not knowing what I was going to find. As soon as you arrive there’s bits to check – where gas mains are, what’s in the buildings around you, why the bomb is where it is, is it next to something vulnerable and what are the consequences of that?”
As has been shown in Trigger Point, “very rarely is where the bomb is placed the actual target, that’s what it gets right… they’ll put in a small bomb that draws you in, but the main bomb is in location two. In Afghanistan, the idea was not to kill but to injure, to then target the Chinook coming in to get the injured.”
The show has faced questions from some viewers about potentially giving away too much about how to make and operate explosives, or work out ways to prevent expos from doing their job, but Chris says there is enough missing from the show to prevent too much information being given away.
“They’ve got the technical aspects correct enough for it to be absolutely authentic, but not quite enough for somebody to go in there and say, oh, I’m going to go make a bomb now. If you tried to use it as some sort of recipe book, then you would definitely be getting it slightly wrong.”
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And like Lucy, he plays down the bravery aspect, saying dealing with explosives comes after years of training and experience.
“As bomb techs, we know exactly what we’re doing. And I guess, more importantly, we know what we don’t know. Everything is calculated risk, it’s not foolhardy risk. So, I guess, yeah, a healthy amount of courage, but I wouldn’t say nerves of steel, no.”
As for Lana Washington – would he have her on his team?
“You know what? I think when she was in series one, probably not. I think she needed a bit more training. I think series two, yeah, she’s definitely very good.
“I’ve heard actually, through the grapevine – I don’t know if this is true, but apparently – I’ve heard that when [McClure] talks to the technical adviser, she’s actually read the script [at times] and said, ‘I’m not sure I’d do that, I’d probably want to do this’, because she’s learnt so much she’s actually started to think like an operator now. So, you know, kudos to her, and her technical adviser as well. Good effort.”
An asylum seeker has been sentenced to 12 months in prison after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping.
Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu had been staying at The Bell Hotel in the Essex town, with the incident fuelling weeks of protests at the site.
The Ethiopian national was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and harassment without violence earlier this month.
Kebatu’s lawyer, Molly Dyas, told Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday that he wanted to be deported, calling it his “firm wish” and a view he held “before the trial”.
Under the UK Borders Act 2007, a deportation order must be made where a foreign national has been convicted of an offence and received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months.
Kebatu was living in The Bell Hotel at the time of the incident. Pic: PA
Handing sentence, district judge Christopher Williams said the asylum seeker posed a “significant risk of reoffending”.
He also told the court that Kebatu “couldn’t have anticipated” his offending “would cause such a response from the public”.
“Particularly in Epping,” the judge said, “but also across the UK, resulting in mass demonstrations and fear that children in the UK are not safe.
“It’s evident to me that your shame and remorse isn’t because of the offences you’ve committed but because of the impact they’ve had.”
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Epping hotel asylum seeker jailed
Kebatu bowed his head to the judge before he was led to the cells.
Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court was told Kebatu had tried to kiss the teenager, put his hand on her thigh and brushed her hair after she offered him pizza.
Kebatu, 41, also told the girl and her friend he wanted to have a baby with them and invited them back to the hotel.
The incident happened on 7 July, about a week after he arrived in the UK on a boat.
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The incident sparked protests in the Essex town and nationwide. Pic: PA
The girl later told police she “froze” and got “really creeped out”, telling him: “No, I’m 14.”
Kebatu was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman – putting his hand on her thigh and trying to kiss her – when she tried to intervene after seeing him talking to the girl again the following day.
He denied all the charges but was convicted earlier this month.
Pic: PA
Kebatu knows ‘Epping is in chaos’ over actions
Prosecutor Stuart Cowen, discussing a pre-sentence report, said Kebatu admitted “he didn’t know the UK was so strict, even though he knew the Ethiopian age of consent was 18”.
Kebatu understood that “Epping is in chaos” because of what he did and that he “had got a lot of migrants in trouble,” Mr Cowen said.
He added that the asylum seeker “felt very sad and felt a lot of remorse,” but added: “The word manipulative is used within the report.”
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Pic: PA
Mr Cowen also read statements from both victims, with the 14-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, saying she is now “checking over my shoulder” when she is out with friends.
She said she prepared the statement “so that the man who did this to me understands what he has done to me – a 14-year-old girl”.
She continued: “Every time I go out with my friends, I’m checking over my shoulder.
“Wearing a skirt now makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. Seeing the bench [where the sexual assault took place] reminds me of everything that happened.
“I’m aware there have been protests because of what has happened – I’m lucky that I was not in the country when that happened.”
The adult woman who was sexually assaulted by Kebatu and who also cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “Since the incident, I feel both angered and frustrated.
“He [Kebatu] did not even appear to know that what he’s done was wrong.”
The family of a grooming victim say they are “angry” and “heartbroken” that prosecutors didn’t see a video of her police interview during their investigations.
Jodie Sheeran, then 15, was allegedly taken to a hotel and raped in November 2004.
She’s believed to have been groomed by young men of Pakistani heritage for a year beforehand. Jodie’s son, Jayden, was born nine months later.
A man was charged, but the case was dropped a day before the trial was meant to start in 2005.
Her father, David, said they were told it was because Jodie had a “reckless lifestyle” and was “an unreliable witness”, but that they never received a formal reason.
In July, he told Sky’s The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee he thinks police “bottled it” because they were worried about being called racist.
Jodie died in November 2022 from an alcohol-related death.
It’s now emerged the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) didn’t view the video of Jodie’s police interview as it “was not shared with us” and they didn’t know at the time that it still existed.
Instead, they only had a transcript of what she told officers.
It’s unclear exactly why this happened, but Staffordshire Police said the footage was available in 2019, when the CPS and police reviewed the case, and in 2023, when the investigation was opened again.
Jodie Sheeran with her mother Angela
“I don’t know if I’ve been misled [or] it was an accident,” Jodie’s mother, Angela, told Sky News’ Sarah-Jane Mee.
“To suddenly say evidence has been there all along – and I’ve got every single letter, every email to tell me they haven’t got the evidence any more… and then it’s emerged Staffordshire Police did have the evidence after all – it was shocking really.”
The CPS watched the video last month and said the transcript is an accurate representation of what Jodie says on the tape.
However, it hasn’t changed their view that there’s no realistic prospect of conviction – and won’t be taking any further action.
Jodie’s father David (right, with Jayden) says it seems police and CPS ‘didn’t know what one another were doing’
Jodie’s father told Sky News he believes it shows the police and CPS “didn’t know what one another were doing – and it makes you so angry”.
“I feel like they’ve gotten away with it,” added Jodie’s son Jayden. “It’s years on now – I’m grateful they’ve found the evidence but what are they doing about it?”
‘I’ll keep fighting until I get justice’
Angela said it shows that other families in a similar situation shouldn’t “take no for an answer” from police or the CPS.
“Since losing a child, nothing else matters, so I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
“So I will keep fighting and fighting and fighting until I get justice for Jodie – and hopefully justice for probably thousands of other victims out there as well.”
Angela says she will ‘keep fighting until I get justice for Jodie’
A national inquiry into grooming gangs was announced in June after a series of cases uncovered sexual abuse of mainly white girls by men of predominately Pakistani heritage had taken place in a number of towns and cities.
A Staffordshire Police spokesperson said their thoughts remain with Jodie’s family and that a “significant amount of work has been undertaken reviewing this case several times”.
They said the interview video was “available to the Senior Investigating Officers in 2019 and 2023” and a “comprehensive contemporaneous written record” of it was given to the CPS on both occasions.
The statement added: “In August 2025, a copy of the recording was provided to the CPS who conducted due diligence to ensure the contemporaneous written record of Jodie’s ABE interview, that they reviewed in 2019 and 2023, was an accurate account of the video recording. They have confirmed this is the case.”
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Jodie died in November 2022
Police said the case had been submitted for a further evidential review.
“Should any new evidence come to light, it will be referred to the CPS for their consideration,” the spokesperson added.
The CPS said: “We carried out reviews of our decision-making in this case in 2019 and 2023 using records provided by Staffordshire Police – both these reviews found that there was not enough evidence to charge the suspect with rape.
“While we requested all available records, Jodie’s video interview from 2005 was not shared with us, we were not informed that it had been retained, and it was only made available to our prosecutors recently after further requests.
“Having cross-referenced the video with detailed accounts of it previously available to us, we have determined that the conclusions we reached in our previous reviews still stand.”
:: Watch the full interview on The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee from 8pm on Tuesday
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