Name: Gerry Conlon
Lived: 1 March 1954 – 21 June 2014
Film shows: June 1974 – 19 October 1989
Film made in 1993
This is the second in my series of true stories that I'll be reviewing over the next two months. I gave a lot of thought to the ordering of the films. Should they be chronological, based on the birth date of the people? Should they be alphabetical, based on their names? Should I alternate between men and women? In the end I decided that the order should just be random. The trouble with any order I choose is that if I add a film at the end of the series it will be out of order. At present I have a list of 40 films, but it's possible that I'll add a film or remove one during the month. Actually, it's not a list; I have a box containing all the films I intend to watch in my room. In the cellar I have a small pile of the films that didn't make the list, and every time I look at it I wonder if it was right to omit them.
My regular readers know that I'm English. Some of you might know that I'm a
patriotic Englishman, and my patriotism has been strengthened by living most
of my adult life abroad. (I currently live in Germany). However, "In the Name
of the Father" shows events that make me feel ashamed to be English. I don't
deny what happened. I'm not naive enough to say it could never happen again.
They were events which I speak about with deep shame.
Gerry Conlon was a young man who lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The
1970's were a time euphemistically called the Troubles. The Roman Catholic
minority of Northern Ireland was seeking to become independent of the United
Kingdom and become a part of the Irish Republic. The Protestant majority of
Northern Ireland wanted to remain in the United Kingdom. A year earlier, in
1973, there was a referendum about whether Northern Ireland should remain part
of the United Kingdom. An overwhelming majority of 98.9% voted to remain in
the UK, but the people of Belfast, mostly Catholic, rejected the result.
Why would Belfast's citizens reject democracy? I have Irish Catholic friends
who all say the same thing. They claim that in the 17th Century Scottish
settlers arrived in Ireland. They were Protestants. The Irish Catholics claim
that the Protestants in Northern Ireland aren't Irish, so they shouldn't be
allowed to vote. Today, 300 years later, they don't consider themselves to
be Scottish. They call themselves Irish.
All I can say about this is that the Scottish were never sent
to Ireland by the government, and Ireland wasn't forced to accept them. They
were people who moved voluntarily. Immigration has always happened, often in
large numbers. For instance, last century large numbers of Pakistanis
settled in English cities like Birmingham and Bradford. Their children and
grandchildren were born in England and have British citizenship, even if they
still feel culturally connected to Pakistan. Is that a reason to exclude them
from voting? Only the most extreme racists would answer Yes.
While I lived in America I discovered that the Americans don't understand the
Irish conflict. They see the Catholic protesters on television and assume that
all of Ireland is being oppressed by the British conquerors. Curiously,
Protestant Irish who live in America also support the unification of Northern
Ireland with the Irish Republic. I don't understand this. Maybe as second and
third generation immigrants in America they feel more linked to their fellow
countrymen than to their religion.
Now let's get back to the film again. Gerry Conlon was a young man who
lived in Belfast. He was a petty thief, stealing lead from rooftops to sell it
as scrap metal. While he was on a roof the British army mistook him for a
sniper and fired at him. This started a riot. The IRA threatened to shoot him,
so his father sent him to London for his own safety. He should have gone to
live with his aunt, but on the ferry he bumped into a friend, Paul Hill, and
went with him to stay with a hippy commune.
Things didn't go well in the commune. Some of them were prejudiced against the
Irish. As a result, he and Paul were soon back on the streets. Gerry broke into a
prostitute's apartment and stole her money. This enabled them to stay in a
hotel. After this he returned to Belfast, while Paul remained in London.
The night when Gerry stole the prostitute's money was 5th October 1974, the
night of a pub bombing in Guildford. Gerry's arrival in England before the bombing and
his departure soon afterwards was considered suspicious enough for him to be
arrested. Gerry was taken to London in a military plane to be interrogated.
His father travelled to London to support him, where he was also arrested,
along with Gerry's aunt and her whole family. Paul Hill and two other members
of the commune were also arrested.
Gerry and Paul were tortured by the police. Paul signed a blank piece of paper
after a gun was put in his mouth. Gerry also signed a blank piece of paper
after a policeman threatened to shoot his father. These statements were
valid evidence in court, so they were both sentenced to life imprisonment.
Gerry was eligible for parole after 30 years, Paul wasn't. The film doesn't
explain why Paul Hill was considered the more serious criminal.
The rest of the film deals with Gerry's years in prison. We see him sharing a
cell with his father. We don't see Paul Hill or his family members again until
the end of the film.
The torture is bad enough, but there were other injustices. A homeless man in
the park was interviewed and informed the police that Gerry was with him at
the time of the bombing. This evidence was hidden in the police records with a
note saying "Do not show to the defence". I could almost have forgiven
the police for making a mistake and arresting the wrong man. That happens
often enough. What I can't forgive is that the police knew he was innocent,
but they put him on trial anyway. It wasn't until 15 years later that he was
finally released after the critical interview was found.
I understand what happened. A bomb in a pub a few miles from London enraged
the public. They demanded justice. The police needed to punish someone to calm
the public anger. They arrested the first suspects they could find. The police
inspector Richard Dixon was under pressure to put someone on trial. In the
final scenes we see him conferring with an unnamed elderly man. A politician?
A senior civil servant? It's not explained, but it suggests that he was acting
on the orders of someone important.
I'd like to say something about historical inaccuracies in this film and in
true stories in general. There are three different reasons for inaccuracies:
1. Mistakes
I'm not aware of any mistakes in this film. It was made in 1993, only
four years after the events in the final scenes took place, so I assume that
the director knew what he was doing.
2. Dramatization
There's one big inaccuracy in this film. Gerry didn't share a prison cell with
his father. They weren't even in the same prison. The director says that the
change was deliberate. He wanted to show the relationship between Gerry and
his father. He also wanted to show that his father was a good non-violent man.
The IRA were planting bombs, and the British army was driving tanks through the streets of Belfast, but
Giuseppe Conlon was a quiet, hard working man who wanted his children to lead
a good life. It's remarkable that he was angry with his son for stealing from
a prostitute, despite the much bigger charges facing him.
Apart from this, the second half of the film would have been boring if we'd
only seen Gerry sitting alone in his cell. That's what dramatization is about.
It makes a film more interesting.
3. Protection of individuals
Police Inspector Richard Dixon doesn't exist. I'm sure that he's based on a real police
officer who interviewed Gerry Conlon, but his name has been changed. This
police officer performed terrible crimes, but he was never put on trial for
his offences. We all know the saying "Innocent until proven guilty". If the film had named the police officer, he could have sued the director
and possibly the film studios for slander. Personally, I wish he'd been named
and shamed, but I understand why he wasn't.
"In the Name of the Father" is a stunning film. It's chilling to see how
disgraceful the British legal system acted in the 1970's. Let it be a lesson
to us all. May it never happen again. I hope not, but there's one thing that
worries me. The film is available on disc in America, Germany and many other
countries, but not in the UK, the country where it's most relevant.
It's been brushed under the carpet. Does someone
somewhere want the events in this film to be forgotten? It's unclear who first
said "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it", but it's a
true statement. I strongly recommend this film to everyone, especially to
patriotic Englishmen like me.
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