:00:00. > :00:11.language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.
:00:12. > :00:16.It is 40 years since BBC Northern Ireland's longest running programme
:00:17. > :00:18.took to the air. Tonight in a special programme, we will be
:00:19. > :00:24.looking back through the archives to see how much has stayed the same and
:00:25. > :00:30.how much has changed. Welcome to Spotlight.
:00:31. > :00:39.The music I remember more than anything else. My dad would kick the
:00:40. > :00:44.dog and say, this is important. It is asking questions about why, who,
:00:45. > :00:53.how and where and not prepared to take bullshit for an answer. How
:00:54. > :00:59.many people have you killed? We call it current affairs. Sometimes it is
:01:00. > :01:04.live, sometimes it is electric. As a family, we would watch Spotlight
:01:05. > :01:12.every week as I still do. This is you, isn't it? Now is a good time to
:01:13. > :01:21.tell you, I am Jennifer O'Leary from BBC Spotlight. You go onto the radio
:01:22. > :01:29.show the day after and the fans are going mad because everybody has been
:01:30. > :01:33.talking about it. The job of Spotlight has always been to ask
:01:34. > :01:38.questions. Sometimes it has found surprising and controversial
:01:39. > :01:44.answers. How did you get the money? Two checks. Written out to me. Three
:01:45. > :01:50.years ago a programme on the business dealings of Iris Robinson
:01:51. > :01:56.created a sensation. Iris Robinson sought and received a total of
:01:57. > :02:04.?50,000 from two well-known property developers in 2008. Two cheques to
:02:05. > :02:13.the tune of ?25,000 were made out at her behest to Kirk McCambley. We
:02:14. > :02:18.have spent months piecing together piecing together the story of the
:02:19. > :02:24.Red Sky affair. Earlier this year, a Spotlight investigation into the
:02:25. > :02:32.contractors for the Housing executive meant that the Stormont
:02:33. > :02:36.was recalled. Then he told me that he wanted me to go against the
:02:37. > :02:45.decision of the board on the extension of the contract. I said to
:02:46. > :02:49.him, I do not think I can do that. The Red Sky programme had its
:02:50. > :02:57.critics. The BBC have been absolutely scandalous. Spotlight
:02:58. > :03:02.three years ago did a special targeted at another representative
:03:03. > :03:07.who just happens to be the First Minister. Subsequent to that
:03:08. > :03:12.programme, there was a series of investigations by the police, as I
:03:13. > :03:17.understand it, and the parliament to ombudsman and others, and the result
:03:18. > :03:26.of those, I understand, was that the thrust of that programme was not
:03:27. > :03:32.upheld. Also its fans. It exposed a real scandal in Northern Ireland. It
:03:33. > :03:37.did it in such a way that it conveyed the human aspect as well as
:03:38. > :03:43.the serious political applications. It was brave. Why did you bring
:03:44. > :03:50.Jenny Palmer and tell her to change her vote in the Housing executive
:03:51. > :03:55.board? -- why did you ring? Mr Brimstone sent as a solicitor's
:03:56. > :03:59.letter in which he does not accept the accuracy of his reporting of his
:04:00. > :04:04.telephone conversation with Jenny Palmer and does not accept he put
:04:05. > :04:11.pressure on her. One of the really significant parts of that programme
:04:12. > :04:14.was the fact that EDU be in that case were communicating via
:04:15. > :04:18.solicitors letters and they were constantly declining chances to
:04:19. > :04:27.explain themselves in an interview like this and it gave an impression
:04:28. > :04:31.of a very close mentality towards journalism and towards someone who
:04:32. > :04:39.was trying to go beyond just reporting what had happened that
:04:40. > :04:42.day. In the 40 years of its existence, Spotlight has asked
:04:43. > :04:47.questions of everyone, from gangsters to government. Generations
:04:48. > :04:52.of journalists have passed through the office with the aim of telling
:04:53. > :04:56.me fruit and revealing things the audience did not know before. That
:04:57. > :05:05.is a philosophy that is as relevant today as it was back when it all
:05:06. > :05:09.began. October, 1973. People across Northern Ireland tuned into a new
:05:10. > :05:15.programme. Some of them in places you might not expect. When the first
:05:16. > :05:21.programme was broadcast, I was in Long Kesh. One black and white
:05:22. > :05:30.television. We followed political events through the programme. That
:05:31. > :05:35.month in Northern Ireland, there were 300 shootings and 80 bomb
:05:36. > :05:39.attacks. Spotlight looked at issues that were a long way from being
:05:40. > :05:44.controversial. Local government, traffic congestion and even the job
:05:45. > :05:49.of a lollipop man. In its infancy, Spotlight did have -- did not have
:05:50. > :05:54.much in a way of a coherent identity. It took some time for the
:05:55. > :05:59.programme to find its feet. But there were signs that it was not
:06:00. > :06:04.afraid to tackle controversial and to boot subjects. I remember a
:06:05. > :06:12.programme about domestic violence. What sort of beatings did you get?
:06:13. > :06:16.Gloria Hunniford was one of the first Northern Ireland reporters to
:06:17. > :06:20.look at domestic violence. It made a big impression on some viewers. My
:06:21. > :06:25.parents used to fight with each other. There was fighting on the TV
:06:26. > :06:29.and I became interested in it because I thought they were related
:06:30. > :06:35.somehow. I thought the fighting on the streets in the North had come
:06:36. > :06:40.into our house in some way. The troubles were just a few years old
:06:41. > :06:43.but by the mid-70s they had already claimed hundreds of lives. One early
:06:44. > :06:48.programme explored a theme Spotlight would return to time and again over
:06:49. > :06:57.the next four decades. The grief suffered by those who had lost loved
:06:58. > :07:04.ones in the violence. This lady's husband was killed while working as
:07:05. > :07:09.a bin man. It is two years since I lost my husband. I had heard that
:07:10. > :07:17.there had been a driver killed and I knew the driver of my husband's
:07:18. > :07:25.squad and I asked had he been killed and he said no. I knew the way he
:07:26. > :07:32.said that he been killed. The subject matter for Spotlight
:07:33. > :07:42.programmes was extremely diverse. It even did celebrity profiles and
:07:43. > :07:48.interviews. In 1979, Spotlight caught up with Northern Ireland's
:07:49. > :07:52.most famous son George Best. The sound quality on this tape has
:07:53. > :07:56.deteriorated over time but in this interview he told Spotlight he was
:07:57. > :08:03.interested even men in returning to the game he loved. The ball comes
:08:04. > :08:08.along and it looks good. No one will ever take advantage of me again. The
:08:09. > :08:16.question was whether his social life played a part in cutting short his
:08:17. > :08:20.career. I have had the same life of everybody else but because I was the
:08:21. > :08:27.best player, my social life was opposed to be wilder. The reporter
:08:28. > :08:34.put it to George Best that he was an alcoholic. I didn't ever said I
:08:35. > :08:42.would was an alcoholic. Angela has got ideas to keep me busy. A few
:08:43. > :08:47.kids to keep him busy. Not everyone might be soft focus. Some like its
:08:48. > :08:52.newest reporter Jeremy Paxman felt it needed to concentrate on the big
:08:53. > :08:57.issues of the day. The 16 men making up the trade mission to Iran were
:08:58. > :09:01.trying to do the Eastern equivalent of selling refrigerators to
:09:02. > :09:08.Eskimos. Strange politics, a system of government, , there was a war
:09:09. > :09:16.going on. That was not reflected in Spotlight at all. It existed in a
:09:17. > :09:21.parallel universe London made the big programmes. They got the
:09:22. > :09:28.resources, the money, the time and the space. We were not talking about
:09:29. > :09:32.ourselves, we were talking to ourselves.
:09:33. > :09:36.Spotlight spent much of its time reacting to the news. Jeremy Paxman
:09:37. > :09:42.and his colleagues wanted to set the agenda. One of his earliest scoops
:09:43. > :09:47.was an investigation into a new terror group, INLA. We met one of
:09:48. > :09:53.their leaders. How many people have you killed? I am not prepared to
:09:54. > :10:02.say. The government went into denial mode and claimed that Jeremy Paxman
:10:03. > :10:08.had been hoaxed. All credit to the bigwigs who were in charge, they did
:10:09. > :10:11.not try to stop us broadcasting. By now, ambitious young journalists
:10:12. > :10:18.were beginning to gravitate towards the toxic mix of Northern Ireland's
:10:19. > :10:24.Troubles. Roisin McAuley moved back from London to Belfast to take up a
:10:25. > :10:28.job as a reporter. I was coming from a free city into a city that was
:10:29. > :10:34.very much under a sort of clamp-down. I remember this feeling
:10:35. > :10:37.of nervousness when you walked past an unattended parked car, for
:10:38. > :10:41.example. Gavin Esler arrived at the end of the 1970s. By now, Spotlight
:10:42. > :10:44.had evolved. It had decisively moved away from arts and entertainment and
:10:45. > :10:47.was delivering investigations which were often controversial. In 1980,
:10:48. > :10:55.Esler reported on a programme which would turn out to be hugely
:10:56. > :10:59.significant. He looked at whether a West Belfast man languishing in
:11:00. > :11:02.prison in England had really been a key figure in a bomb-making factory.
:11:03. > :11:11.Then obscure, the imprisoned man's cause was soon to become famous. We
:11:12. > :11:14.did the story about Giuseppe Conlon which threw doubts on the entire
:11:15. > :11:18.case against a number of other people in the so-called Aunt Annie's
:11:19. > :11:24.Bomb Factory, in which there were no bombs. Were you in the IRA? Was I in
:11:25. > :11:28.it? Nah. I was in the scouts. And because of that, because they got
:11:29. > :11:31.off, it also raised doubts about the Birmingham Six. So it is one of the
:11:32. > :11:34.proudest moments in my journalistic career that an innocent man, who
:11:35. > :11:38.unfortunately died before he could be proved innocent to the public,
:11:39. > :11:41.had been traduced by the British court system. Which eventually put
:11:42. > :11:44.it right, but too late for Guiseppe Conlon, unfortunately.
:11:45. > :11:51.Spotlight's job was increasingly to get to the story behind the news
:11:52. > :11:55.headlines. Roisin McAuley was asked to look at the disappearance of Army
:11:56. > :12:00.Captain, Robert Nairac, who had gone missing in South Armagh. Robert
:12:01. > :12:04.Nairac's mission on that May night has never been made clear, so what
:12:05. > :12:08.sort of soldier was it that got so caught up in the Troubles of
:12:09. > :12:15.Northern Ireland that, in the end, he even tried to assume the identity
:12:16. > :12:18.of those people he was fighting? He was a Lawrence of Arabia-type figure
:12:19. > :12:32.with all those characteristics of being a loner, thinking that you
:12:33. > :12:36.could kind of win wars on your own. I remember being told this was the
:12:37. > :12:44.case of the spy who didn't come in from the cold. Because it was a May
:12:45. > :12:51.evening and Captain Nairac was wearing a donkey jacket. I was told
:12:52. > :12:54.that, this had made some people in the pub suspicious because he hadn't
:12:55. > :12:57.taken his jacket off. Spotlight gained a reputation as a forum for
:12:58. > :13:00.extended and hard-hitting interviews. When, Gavin Esler met
:13:01. > :13:05.the mother of a hunger striker, he was taken aback by her loyalty to
:13:06. > :13:08.the cause. Part of the context was Connor Cruise O'Brien, the Irish
:13:09. > :13:12.politician had said, I think he said that republicanism is a genetic
:13:13. > :13:15.defect and too often it is the mother who is the carrier. Are you
:13:16. > :13:20.prepared to see the protest go to the death? Am I prepared to accept
:13:21. > :13:26.it? Yes. I know the men, and short of their five demands, they will
:13:27. > :13:30.hunger strike to death. Many people will find it extraordinary that your
:13:31. > :13:36.son doesn't take his full remission, come off the protest and come out of
:13:37. > :13:40.prison as soon as possible. I think one thing that you people do not
:13:41. > :13:44.seem to understand is that those men are not criminals. It seemed to be
:13:45. > :13:50.in some ways almost against nature. Or against what you would expect.
:13:51. > :13:56.And I thought of my mother. Would my mother ever say that about me? It's
:13:57. > :14:01.right for you to die for something you genuinely believe in? Looking
:14:02. > :14:04.back through the archives, it's clear that the Troubles formed the
:14:05. > :14:09.backbone of Spotlight in the late 1970s and 1980s. After all, it was
:14:10. > :14:14.the story unfolding on the doorstep. But that wasn't all that Spotlight
:14:15. > :14:18.turned its attention to. It also tried to deal with the big social
:14:19. > :14:22.issues of the day in Northern Ireland. And looking back on some of
:14:23. > :14:29.those programmes now, it shows just how much things have changed. Jeff
:14:30. > :14:32.Dudgen is 30. He is a junior executive in industry and he enjoys
:14:33. > :14:36.a busy social life outside his job. At first sight he is like thousands
:14:37. > :14:41.of other young men in Ulster. Except that Jeff is a homosexual. Nearly 40
:14:42. > :14:45.years later, in a very different Belfast, we met Jeff again. I asked
:14:46. > :14:51.him about his memories of the programme. I do remember one aspect
:14:52. > :14:55.of the programme was the vox pops of the people in the street and there
:14:56. > :14:58.were six or seven different people, four or five of them were generally
:14:59. > :15:02.sympathetic. I feel sorry for them. Everybody to their own thing.
:15:03. > :15:04.Everyone to their own, really. In 1976, homosexuality was still a
:15:05. > :15:09.criminal offence in Northern Ireland. If he practices his
:15:10. > :15:15.beliefs, he could be convicted in court and sentenced to life in jail.
:15:16. > :15:25.So in that context, to appear on television, to talk about this
:15:26. > :15:28.issue, was brave. Well, it was brave, but maybe it was wise.
:15:29. > :15:32.Because if we were going to go down, it was probably going to be harder
:15:33. > :15:36.to send us down having appeared on TV. So it was calculated. People
:15:37. > :15:40.were nervous of being nasty to people who had been on TV. After the
:15:41. > :15:43.programme, Jeff went to the European Court of Human Rights and won a
:15:44. > :15:46.landmark case leading to the decriminalisation of homosexuality
:15:47. > :15:51.in Northern Ireland. At times, Spotlight tried to find the local
:15:52. > :15:56.angle on global issues. And one of the biggest was the ever-present
:15:57. > :15:58.threat of nuclear war. For almost 50 bemused local government officers,
:15:59. > :16:01.it's the first step towards preparing Northern Ireland unity for
:16:02. > :16:05.the consequences of a nuclear attack. One memorable edition of the
:16:06. > :16:16.programme looked at how Northern Ireland would fare if the button
:16:17. > :16:19.were ever pressed. If a two megaton nuclear megaton bomb fell on the
:16:20. > :16:22.centre of Belfast it would cause death and destruction on an enormous
:16:23. > :16:26.scale. And I remember thinking at the time that it was quite bizarre
:16:27. > :16:30.because the only place in the United kingdom that was blowing itself up
:16:31. > :16:35.was going to be a target for somebody else to blow up. If you
:16:36. > :16:38.were in the Kremlin in 1983 you were clearly going to turn round and say,
:16:39. > :16:49.well, no need to blow up Belfast, they seem to be doing a reasonable
:16:50. > :16:52.job of that themselves! What's been forgotten about the Troubles is that
:16:53. > :16:55.for most people, they were just distant bangs and news reports. You
:16:56. > :16:59.needed to be involved or very unlucky to be caught up in them. The
:17:00. > :17:02.threat of nuclear was what really kept us awake at night. Spotlight
:17:03. > :17:04.followed a Civil Service exercise dealing with a fictitious nuclear
:17:05. > :17:06.attack on Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, Coleraine,
:17:07. > :17:13.Ballyclare, Crossgar, Aughnacloy and Enniskillen were deemed targets.
:17:14. > :17:20.Their strategic importance uncertain. It named all these places
:17:21. > :17:23.that were going to be wiped out. And, of course, shopkeepers in these
:17:24. > :17:26.towns were watching that episode of Spotlight, thinking to themselves,
:17:27. > :17:29.brilliant, get a claim in. Some of Spotlight's early programmes remind
:17:30. > :17:35.us of how much things have changed in Northern Ireland and beyond. But
:17:36. > :17:38.some show us that certain types of stories pop up again and again.
:17:39. > :17:41.Stories, for instance, about the way politicians use public money. In one
:17:42. > :17:49.memorable programme, Spotlight followed a group of Belfast city
:17:50. > :17:52.councilors on a junket to Spain. It was a trip they would come to
:17:53. > :17:56.regret. Reporter Wendy Robbins followed the councilors to a
:17:57. > :18:00.conference in Spain. But when she went to the conference, they were
:18:01. > :18:04.nowhere to be seen. We've been in Spain for full two days and there
:18:05. > :18:08.has been no sign of Councilor Kobain or Councilor Proctor. When she did
:18:09. > :18:12.catch up with one of them, it turns out they had gone on their own
:18:13. > :18:17.excursion. We decided to drive up to Barcelona to see Barcelona. I mean,
:18:18. > :18:29.that's what we decided to do. But at the ratepayers' expense? Yes. Do you
:18:30. > :18:38.not see anything incongruous? What benefit has it been to the
:18:39. > :18:49.ratepayer? I have seen ideas that will assist the council in providing
:18:50. > :18:53.jobs in the city. One Spotlight ended what was a running sore in the
:18:54. > :18:56.council and that was the whole culture of junketeering. One
:18:57. > :18:59.programme stopped it. Keeping an eye on how politicians used public money
:19:00. > :19:06.or services would become a running theme with Spotlight. The programme
:19:07. > :19:09.revealed that another politician had been wrongly using the disabled
:19:10. > :19:14.Motability scheme to acquire the use of a car. This is the West Car Park
:19:15. > :19:18.at Stormont buildings. And this is a Motability car. The car has, in
:19:19. > :19:22.fact, been hired out to a disabled person. But it appears to be being
:19:23. > :19:27.used by one of its named drivers, Sinn Fein councilor Alex Maskey as a
:19:28. > :19:32.means of getting to work. Spotlight wrote to Alex Maskey to ask him if
:19:33. > :19:35.he would talk about this subject but he declined. So we decided to come
:19:36. > :19:43.to Stormont to talk to him about this issue. Hello, Mr Maskey. It's
:19:44. > :19:58.Andy Davies from the spotlight programme. The answer was no. I seem
:19:59. > :20:04.to remember Alex Maskey being dubbed Motability Maskey in the end. But by
:20:05. > :20:08.now a new generation was coming through to learn their trade in
:20:09. > :20:15.Northern Ireland. It wasn't an easy position to get. Working here was
:20:16. > :20:18.seen as the best job in journalism. For a young journalist this was a
:20:19. > :20:21.place where people sorted out their differences through bombs and
:20:22. > :20:26.bullets. And there was the marching season. I mean, that, to a young
:20:27. > :20:34.Englishman's eyes, looks like something out of Borneo. You cannot
:20:35. > :20:38.imagine how alien that looked. Early on, Thompson was asked to look at
:20:39. > :20:46.the shootings of three IRA members by the SAS in Gibraltar. We looked
:20:47. > :20:49.in that direction and saw a chap with a white shirt reeling backwards
:20:50. > :20:56.with a man standing maybe four feet away from him and firing a gun and
:20:57. > :21:01.following him down as he fell. They look like they were just shot. It
:21:02. > :21:05.seemed to me this was a deliberate shooting to kill. My overall
:21:06. > :21:13.impression that it did shine a light onto issues. I was unhappy with some
:21:14. > :21:23.of the focus in terms of that which well glamourised the terrorists,
:21:24. > :21:26.almost providing an excuse for them. Here were the days of the state
:21:27. > :21:29.saying they weren't fighting a war so therefore they were fighting
:21:30. > :21:37.according to the norms of civilian laws. So therefore you couldn't have
:21:38. > :21:40.assassination squads, murder squads running about killing people that
:21:41. > :21:43.you didn't like. It was to become one of the most controversial and
:21:44. > :21:48.contentious programmes Spotlight would ever make. SAS men actually
:21:49. > :21:54.had to apologise to people as they charged past, trying to conceal
:21:55. > :21:57.their guns. Spotlight would allege that the official account of the
:21:58. > :22:05.shootings was flawed and present evidence to the contrary. It was the
:22:06. > :22:11.government which had first gone. They were setting out but they said
:22:12. > :22:15.had happened. The journalist job is to say, hold on, is that what
:22:16. > :22:25.actually happened? You speak truth to power. . Why wouldn't Spotlight
:22:26. > :22:33.do that? The Government, led by Margaret Thatcher, was outraged. The
:22:34. > :22:37.danger is that witnesses whose evidence is vital to the matters are
:22:38. > :22:40.questioned without any of the safeguards which we can get in
:22:41. > :22:46.courts of law or before tribunal 's have tried. It is one of the
:22:47. > :22:53.proudest bastions of liberty that the rule of law is upheld. Spotlight
:22:54. > :22:58.went ahead and ran the programme, despite masse political opposition.
:22:59. > :23:04.But Spotlight investigations weren't always about the Troubles. In fact,
:23:05. > :23:08.some of the most memorable were undercover investigations into
:23:09. > :23:11.crime. For me, Spotlight and the people behind the programme, the
:23:12. > :23:14.programme planners, still took time out to produce programmes that were
:23:15. > :23:22.not Troubles related and that was a great barometer. Of a secret world
:23:23. > :23:26.and a hidden and unknown world. For the birds themselves, there is only
:23:27. > :23:30.one prospect to be forced to fight to the death. In 1994, Spotlight
:23:31. > :23:36.investigated the world of illegal cockfighting. Two exhausted birds
:23:37. > :23:44.are forced together. The white bird has been skewered through the neck
:23:45. > :23:46.attached to its opponent's leg. By the time I arrived on Spotlight the
:23:47. > :23:51.cockfighting investigation had been underway for some months. But then
:23:52. > :23:55.we needed to bring it on to the next stage, which was to get hold of the
:23:56. > :23:59.people responsible and put it to them what they had been doing. That
:24:00. > :24:03.is you, isn't it, Mr Quinn? No, it's not. It is you, isn't it, Mr Quinn?
:24:04. > :24:06.Hang on a minute. Are you detectives or something? Hey, Rosemary, let the
:24:07. > :24:10.show that, see if you show that show that, see if you show that
:24:11. > :24:15.camera? I will personally locking shove it down your throat. For me,
:24:16. > :24:18.unless someone from Spotlight is actually chasing someone up a lane,
:24:19. > :24:22.knocking at a window of a farmhouse where potentially grievous bodily
:24:23. > :24:25.harm will take place? There was no real fear in Spotlight. OK, let's
:24:26. > :24:29.just take a cameraman and a reporter and we're going to go to a remote
:24:30. > :24:33.farmhouse. And then confront them with a moral point that I wouldn't
:24:34. > :24:37.even do in a studio. The problem with locking yourself in the back of
:24:38. > :24:51.your own van is what to do you do next. He preferred the indignity of
:24:52. > :24:58.burying himself. Can I do this through the window? Jeremy the
:24:59. > :25:01.reporter put the pictures through the small space in the window and
:25:02. > :25:05.confronted him. Is this you? Is this you, Mr? Whatever his name was. I
:25:06. > :25:09.think one of the significances of that film was that it got picked up
:25:10. > :25:13.by the Royal Television Society the next year for an award. And I think
:25:14. > :25:17.it gave the programme a confidence that you know this was our terrain,
:25:18. > :25:19.we could be doing this. But the world of politics and paramilitary
:25:20. > :25:22.violence was still the day-to-day subject matter for Spotlight.
:25:23. > :25:23.Sometimes it would try to investigate paramilitary
:25:24. > :25:42.organisations. Often, it simply tried to count the human cost of
:25:43. > :25:58.their violence. I knew the boys were dead. I cursed and I screamed
:25:59. > :26:06.because I knew there was no way they were getting out of there. I keep
:26:07. > :26:17.asking myself why it was not me? I have had a good innings. By 1994,
:26:18. > :26:20.things were changing fast. Spotlight journalists had become used to the
:26:21. > :26:24.fact that covering death and destruction would always be part of
:26:25. > :26:31.the job but the events of August, 1994, meant they had to think again.
:26:32. > :26:34.There was a real sense we were living through history. I found
:26:35. > :26:45.myself right in the middle of the team. On the eve of the cease-fire,
:26:46. > :26:48.Spotlight went to meet the leading Republican Bernadette McAliskey. I
:26:49. > :26:58.think that for Republicans the war is over. I think the good guys lost.
:26:59. > :27:06.That is the kind of interview clip we remember. Within a day, we saw
:27:07. > :27:16.the IRA cease-fire announcement. The first response came in Belfast
:27:17. > :27:21.itself. For that autumn season of Spotlight, there was only one big
:27:22. > :27:28.story. What the cease-fire actually meant for people living here. The
:27:29. > :27:32.cease-fire makes a big difference. I no longer have to worry about people
:27:33. > :27:43.sitting behind me going to blow my head. I never went into town since
:27:44. > :27:48.the troubles were on. The cease-fires changed the political
:27:49. > :27:52.dynamic. Suddenly, the onus was on politicians to talk to one another
:27:53. > :27:56.and their voters about the best way forward. Spotlight brought them into
:27:57. > :28:03.the studio to do just that and sometimes there were fiery debates.
:28:04. > :28:10.It is called motion 79. Use tabled it at your general assembly -- you
:28:11. > :28:17.tabled it. There was a party paper. You carried the cloth and glorified
:28:18. > :28:25.the death of a man who murdered mercilessly. I think you have made
:28:26. > :28:29.your point. I regard you because you were born in Ireland as an Irish
:28:30. > :28:34.person. When the first cease-fire broke down with the Canary Wharf
:28:35. > :28:39.bomb on a Spotlight decided to name the men at the heart of IRA
:28:40. > :28:49.decision-making. Spotlight spoke to many sources and all of them agreed
:28:50. > :28:57.that this is one of the most senior men in the IRA. The most intelligent
:28:58. > :29:01.monetary operator that the RA has produced is Brian Keenan. Those who
:29:02. > :29:07.do not want peace, they will get war. The people in Northern Ireland
:29:08. > :29:12.did not know whether the IRA would lay down in weapons again, but they
:29:13. > :29:17.did know the identities of the men who were making the decisions. The
:29:18. > :29:21.BBC took the view that we had very substantial evidence to justify the
:29:22. > :29:28.assertion that these men were running the IRA and frankly only the
:29:29. > :29:34.BBC is big enough and had sufficient cloud to say, we are going to name
:29:35. > :29:42.them. If they want to sue us, we will see them in court. --
:29:43. > :29:48.sufficient clout. Social attitudes were changing too, however slowly.
:29:49. > :29:51.20 years after looking at laws that homosexuality, Spotlight went back
:29:52. > :29:57.to the issue in a memorable programme. It was a programme about
:29:58. > :30:02.the Brigadier's son who was gay and came back to Belfast. John Lyttle
:30:03. > :30:08.was the son of Tucker Lyttle. He agreed to come back to Belfast from
:30:09. > :30:13.London to explore what life was like for gay people here. He encountered
:30:14. > :30:22.some opposition. I am gay. That is my gift from God. No, it is not. It
:30:23. > :30:26.is like blonde hair and blue eyes. This book tells differently. Do you
:30:27. > :30:32.believe homosexuals should be treated differently under the law? I
:30:33. > :30:37.have no problem with that. I came away from that programme thinking,
:30:38. > :30:43.we are not just as bad as people make out, we are not as backward, as
:30:44. > :30:48.nasty and homophobic. Not everyone was a fan of the
:30:49. > :30:57.programme. It is not that important for us to know that the leader of a
:30:58. > :31:01.loyalist paramilitary group. Sun had a different sexuality to his
:31:02. > :31:08.father. I do not know how important matters. Just before the programme
:31:09. > :31:12.went out, Tucker Lyttle asked to meet with the reported to discuss
:31:13. > :31:18.it. I explained what we were trying to do and it was not a hatchet job.
:31:19. > :31:23.It was very amicable. At the end of the conversation, I put my hand in
:31:24. > :31:29.my pocket and I got a business card out and I reached it over to him and
:31:30. > :31:36.I said, here is my card, you can bring me any time you like. John put
:31:37. > :31:41.don't need to give my daddy or card, don't need to give my daddy or card,
:31:42. > :31:48.I am sure he knows where you live anyway. -- my dad your card. The
:31:49. > :31:52.Spotlight archive is a document of how much things have changed here in
:31:53. > :31:56.Northern Ireland. For those who remember the dark days of the
:31:57. > :32:02.violence, and arguably the biggest change of all is peace. Looking at
:32:03. > :32:06.40 years of programmes, you can see how we got here, gradually and with
:32:07. > :32:16.the old certainties being chipped away at year after year. We fight
:32:17. > :32:22.because the people want us to fight. Total cessation of all violence. No
:32:23. > :32:34.guns, no government. Republicans are serious about discussions. I
:32:35. > :32:38.asked... Not everybody wanted to move forward. Some refused to lay
:32:39. > :32:47.down their guns. Others went looking for more. In this programme, we went
:32:48. > :32:57.on the trail of a dissident arms smuggling operation in the Balkans.
:32:58. > :33:03.He took out a rocket launcher 200 metres from MI6. The crucial thing
:33:04. > :33:07.for us was to be able to place two of these dissident republicans in
:33:08. > :33:14.Croatia. We had heard about a hotel they might have been staying at. We
:33:15. > :33:17.went there one night. We bought the night porter a glass of whiskey and
:33:18. > :33:22.persuaded this very nice chap to hand over the hotel logs over the
:33:23. > :33:29.last few years and low and behold there they were, the two names
:33:30. > :33:32.signed and dated. There was, the Croatian connection in
:33:33. > :33:37.black-and-white. Would you like to respond to comments made in the... ?
:33:38. > :33:44.The team put their evidence to one of the men, the man alleged to be
:33:45. > :33:51.the leader of the continuity IFA, Joe Fee. Can I have a word with you,
:33:52. > :33:55.for just one moment, please? The Croat connection, incidentally, I
:33:56. > :33:59.consider it to be one of the pieces of journalism that I am most proud
:34:00. > :34:04.of in all of the years I have been working as a journalist. Every
:34:05. > :34:06.journalist dreams of a big breakthrough, when they get enough
:34:07. > :34:12.evidence to tell a really important story. In 2000, Spotlight gained
:34:13. > :34:16.access to secret security services surveillance footage that allowed
:34:17. > :34:21.them to tell the story of an IRA quartermaster who had been shot dead
:34:22. > :34:25.by armed police in London. MI5 had been following Diarmaid O'Neill and
:34:26. > :34:30.his associates because they believed he was planning a bombing campaign.
:34:31. > :34:33.The operation ended up with a man shot dead. The surveillance tapes
:34:34. > :34:39.broadcast by Spotlight show just how the killing came about. Slowly
:34:40. > :34:45.coming across. Brian McHugh is another who believes Diarmaid
:34:46. > :34:49.O'Neill was surrendering. He was in the room when he is shot. He is
:34:50. > :34:55.currently in the republican wing in the maze prison. It was during the
:34:56. > :35:00.making of the programme that someone made contact with us and said they
:35:01. > :35:05.have got some material that we should really look at. We were
:35:06. > :35:12.presented with a bin bag full of tapes. They were security service
:35:13. > :35:17.surveillance tapes and there were dozens of them and they were tapes
:35:18. > :35:23.of footage of the down crisscrossing London. Diarmaid O'Neill and his
:35:24. > :35:29.colleagues in the park, in a street, in cars.
:35:30. > :35:33.We then realised that we had something that had never been seen
:35:34. > :35:40.on British television before. We had security service surveillance
:35:41. > :35:45.material and we had the commentary of the officers in their cars while
:35:46. > :35:53.they were watching the gang. Going straight on. The programme also had
:35:54. > :35:58.access to police audio recordings of the moment when the gang was
:35:59. > :35:59.apprehended in their hotel room and Diarmaid O'Neill was shot dead by
:36:00. > :36:20.armed police. In terms of the footage, things like
:36:21. > :36:25.that rarely happen in your career. Every journalist hopes for the
:36:26. > :36:44.envelope being posted under his door.
:36:45. > :36:50.We gave people an insight into the security services operation that
:36:51. > :36:56.they had never seen before and we were able to count the story of
:36:57. > :37:02.Diarmaid O'Neill and his final hours in a complete way that no one else
:37:03. > :37:06.had done before because we had that footage. From investigating
:37:07. > :37:11.dissident republicans to state security services, Spotlight was
:37:12. > :37:16.breaking new ground and in 2003 it was the turn of loyalists. The
:37:17. > :37:20.programme gained unprecedented access to loyalist paramilitaries at
:37:21. > :37:26.a time when they were at war with each other. The Spotlight are member
:37:27. > :37:31.most was about the UDA. Spotlight first looked at John White in 2000.
:37:32. > :37:34.He was associated with the UDA, an organisation that had been accused
:37:35. > :37:39.of widespread criminality. Spotlight asked him how he had come by all of
:37:40. > :37:44.the trappings of wealth. I have worked hard all of my life. When I
:37:45. > :37:48.was 11, I worked. While I was imprisoned, I worked very hard also.
:37:49. > :37:56.I was able to save the money I made out of hand across -- handicrafts. I
:37:57. > :38:01.knew when he said it, it was one of those golden moments. I invested in
:38:02. > :38:06.the stock exchange. I was watching it sitting in a terraced house in
:38:07. > :38:17.Portadown. I could hear my neighbours roaring with laughter.
:38:18. > :38:30.Three years later, Kevin Magee met John White again. I never received
:38:31. > :38:34.extortion at all. What do you think the public think? You are getting
:38:35. > :38:46.into things that I do not want to talk about. URA public figure. They
:38:47. > :38:52.are jealous. People constantly ask, where does John White get his
:38:53. > :38:59.money? You are driving a Jaguar. I don't drink or smoke. Spotlight also
:39:00. > :39:03.met loyalist Sammy Duddy to discuss the ongoing feud. Gunmen had
:39:04. > :39:09.attacked his house and while he and his wife escaped unscathed one of
:39:10. > :39:15.his pet dogs did not. The dog died within an hour. Why wife got up and
:39:16. > :39:23.shouted out the window at them. What did you shout? I shouted, you have
:39:24. > :39:36.killed my Chihuahua! Kevin was given access to the infamous Big Brother
:39:37. > :39:42.house, home to Johnny Adair. He wanted to bring the cameras in. He
:39:43. > :39:46.wanted us to see him in his lair. Johnny Adair was outside and had
:39:47. > :39:51.fallen out with the others and it was a short space of time at the
:39:52. > :39:54.peak of the feud that is when they were all trashing each other. That
:39:55. > :40:00.programme was made in a very short space of time, in about 24 hours.
:40:01. > :40:08.When a question is booked that Johnny when a question is put that
:40:09. > :40:15.Johnny Adair does not want to answer, the atmosphere changes.
:40:16. > :40:20.A large element of this feud is that you were trying to muscle in on
:40:21. > :40:25.their turf. Most people, there is a graduation towards a point of anger
:40:26. > :40:30.and you can feel your way in a conversation. But not on those
:40:31. > :40:35.occasions. I used to feel that these guys were on very short fuses. Their
:40:36. > :40:42.lives were under threat. Sometimes people at the heart of a big story
:40:43. > :40:46.did want to talk. And in early 2005, no story was bigger than the
:40:47. > :40:53.Northern bank robbery. After the bank robbery, there was only one
:40:54. > :41:00.story in town. Chris Ward was the bank employee who had been forced to
:41:01. > :41:06.help the robbers rob the bank. I was astounded when he walked into the
:41:07. > :41:10.office that day. I did not think he would turn up. The interview was
:41:11. > :41:24.broadcast the next day in a special programme. How much do you estimate
:41:25. > :41:27.was in the second consignment? Iit would help allay any lingering or
:41:28. > :41:32.lurking suspicion that he was somehow involved. Did you feel like
:41:33. > :41:35.you're under suspicion? When you read, you try not to read into
:41:36. > :41:39.stupid media articles. But when you read things like that or if Joe
:41:40. > :41:46.Bloggs in the street would read things like that, they would think,
:41:47. > :41:50.your wee man must be involved. And then I remember once the interview
:41:51. > :41:53.was broadcast, and my phone just went, it was red hot, I remember.
:41:54. > :41:56.And there were journalists on from Australia, from Germany, from
:41:57. > :41:59.everywhere. And they all wanted to know more about the Chris Ward
:42:00. > :42:03.interview and the Northern Bank robbery, which at that time was one
:42:04. > :42:06.of the biggest in the world. Not everyone is willing to sit down for
:42:07. > :42:09.a spotlight interview. But sometimes questions have to be asked anyway.
:42:10. > :42:21.That's where the doorstep interview comes in. Often it happens in a
:42:22. > :42:23.public place, and for Spotlight reporters, door-stepping is part of
:42:24. > :42:37.the job description. How are you doing? And this is the
:42:38. > :42:41.stuff and definitely this is diazepam. And now is a good time to
:42:42. > :42:44.tell you that I am Jennifer O'Leary, a reporter for BBC Spotlight. I just
:42:45. > :42:48.wanted to find out from you where are you getting those drugs? You
:42:49. > :42:53.know this is illegal? I wouldn't come any further. You're having a
:42:54. > :42:58.laugh? No. You better be slagging me, mate. We've been filming you for
:42:59. > :43:02.the BBC. You're having a giraffe! We have, we've been filling you for the
:43:03. > :43:05.BBC and we want to ask you what you're at. And what you're getting
:43:06. > :43:08.up to. Stephen Walker, BBC Television. Why are you selling
:43:09. > :43:14.clocked cars? It's nerve-wracking, it's
:43:15. > :43:17.frightening, you are worried that you are going to get the words wrong
:43:18. > :43:24.because you have only got one chance. You know, it's a bit like
:43:25. > :43:27.taking a penalty kick at Wembley in front of 100,000 people. You've only
:43:28. > :43:30.got one chance. Bishop Hegarty, Darragh McIntyre, BBC Spotlight. I
:43:31. > :43:33.was wondering could we have a wee word with you about Father Eugene
:43:34. > :43:37.Greene? Yeah. Did the Church handle the issue of father Eugene Greene
:43:38. > :43:41.appropriately? Oh, yes. Any chance of people getting their money back?
:43:42. > :43:46.I will not answer your question. Mr McIlhome, Ciaran Tracey from BBC
:43:47. > :43:50.Spotlight. Can we ask you about your waste smuggling operation, Jimmy?
:43:51. > :43:53.How much money are you making? BBC Northern Ireland, are you going to
:43:54. > :43:54.compensate the victims of IRA violence? Mr McGuinness, where is
:43:55. > :43:59.Captain Robert Nairac's body? I Captain Robert Nairac's body? I
:44:00. > :44:03.haven't got a clue. Mr McGuinness. Mr Gonzales, my name is Mandy
:44:04. > :44:06.McAuley, I'm a reporter with the BBC, I want to ask you about illegal
:44:07. > :44:11.dogfighting. You've been holding illegal dogfights at your home. At
:44:12. > :44:19.this point, police stepped in to arrest him. Do you like watching
:44:20. > :44:22.animals suffer? One tool journalists available to Spotlight journalists
:44:23. > :44:26.when following a story is secret filming. It's only allowed in
:44:27. > :44:28.limited circumstances, but over the years Spotlight has come to
:44:29. > :44:36.specialise in long-term undercover investigations. We will never engage
:44:37. > :44:39.expeditions of just sending cameras expeditions of just sending cameras
:44:40. > :44:42.or recording equipment somewhere in the hope that something might turn
:44:43. > :44:45.up. That is untoward. We need good evidence that something is wrong
:44:46. > :44:51.before we will contemplate secretly recording it. Sometimes it can be
:44:52. > :44:54.dangerous. In 2002, Spotlight asked two young Lithuanian journalists to
:44:55. > :44:57.go undercover as they were illegally trafficked to Northern Ireland to
:44:58. > :45:05.work on farms. The programme was called People for Sale. In order to
:45:06. > :45:12.deceive immigration, Juarate is sending them on a less direct route.
:45:13. > :45:15.We're in Helsinki airport and Saulius and Loreta are right behind
:45:16. > :45:19.us over there in that queue. Now, they're about to board a flight to
:45:20. > :45:23.Dublin and there they'll be met by an agent, and he's going to drive
:45:24. > :45:26.them North of the border. The only thing that can scupper the entire
:45:27. > :45:29.plan is passport control at Dublin airport. But whilst undercover in
:45:30. > :45:34.Lithuania, one of the journalists, Loreta, had a dangerous encounter.
:45:35. > :45:37.She met with a people trafficker, and went with him to a restaurant.
:45:38. > :45:49.Spotlight journalist Emma Tolland watched them from outside. Two black
:45:50. > :45:52.cars pulled up outside. And about eight very burly, well-built men
:45:53. > :45:55.walked into the building. They didn't look like they were there for
:45:56. > :45:59.a meal. They weren't. They were there to attack the man Loreta had
:46:00. > :46:03.just met. She was caught in the middle of a Lithuanian gang feud.
:46:04. > :46:06.And she was wearing a secret camera. All of the curtains were closed in
:46:07. > :46:16.the restaurant and the front door was bolted shut.
:46:17. > :46:19.Luckily, Loreta had been trained well, and as soon as she smelled the
:46:20. > :46:24.danger she got up from the table and well, and as soon as she smelled the
:46:25. > :46:27.left and stood in a corner with the other customers in the restaurant to
:46:28. > :46:30.keep herself safe. The programme ended with Spotlight putting
:46:31. > :46:33.questions to those involved in the people-trafficking ring, both in
:46:34. > :46:37.Northern Ireland and in Lithuania. Hello, Mr Kernan, my name's Declan
:46:38. > :46:40.Lawn, I'm from the BBC. I was wondering, could you talk to me
:46:41. > :46:49.about your involvement in the trafficking of illegal workers into
:46:50. > :46:53.Northern Ireland? If the police see you, first of all, you're on
:46:54. > :47:02.holiday. And that's it. And in the farm there will be no problem? No.
:47:03. > :47:10.In 2007, Spotlight investigated the hidden world of illegal dogfighting.
:47:11. > :47:13.We had to hire undercover operates who would pose and live as members
:47:14. > :47:16.of a dogfighting gang here in Northern Ireland for one-and-a-half
:47:17. > :47:19.years. There was blood splattered all over the ring, all over the two
:47:20. > :47:22.handlers. Blood was everywhere. It was an absolute bloodbath. These
:47:23. > :47:25.were very, very dangerous people and if our undercover operates had been
:47:26. > :47:28.rumbled, they were in serious, serious trouble. Mandy McAuley and
:47:29. > :47:31.undercover reporter Steve found themselves in a remote part of rural
:47:32. > :47:39.Finland where illegal pitbulls were being trained to be killing
:47:40. > :47:42.machines. I remember looking up and seeing dogs hanging from their jaw
:47:43. > :47:52.and this was all part of strengthening their jaws for the
:47:53. > :47:56.fight. And standing there and Steve digging me in the ribs and hissing,
:47:57. > :47:59.smile. For god's sake smile and laugh. We're dog fighters. We don't
:48:00. > :48:04.care. The undercover footage revealed a world of intense cruelty.
:48:05. > :48:08.There were times when just the tears filled up. You see what these
:48:09. > :48:15.horrible people are doing to these wonderful animals. If I had my way
:48:16. > :48:19.they would be locked up and jailed for life. But death was to be at the
:48:20. > :48:23.hands of Robert Gonzales. Gonzales lifted the dog and took it to a side
:48:24. > :48:27.building. The first that we knew that something was up was that all
:48:28. > :48:31.the lights in the barn went off. It wasn't until afterwards that he said
:48:32. > :48:35.that he took the dog into a shed and put a crocodile clip onto its tail
:48:36. > :48:39.and a crocodile clip onto its ear and threw a bucket of water over the
:48:40. > :48:44.dog and rigged it to the main electricity system to kill it. Steve
:48:45. > :48:51.was a guy, very tough, never really showed his emotions. But he came out
:48:52. > :48:55.and he was disturbed. It wasn't just the undercover reporter who was
:48:56. > :49:00.disturbed. Over the following days, Spotlight and the BBC were inundated
:49:01. > :49:03.with reaction from the audience. I remember when the dogfighting
:49:04. > :49:07.programme went out and that is indicative of what Spotlight's all
:49:08. > :49:10.about. It's at the very heart of Spotlight, that you're actually
:49:11. > :49:14.seeing what's going on in Northern Ireland. But until Spotlight does
:49:15. > :49:17.it, it's hidden. And then it's hitting you up the face, this is
:49:18. > :49:23.happening here. This is happening in our country, and then everybody
:49:24. > :49:25.wants to talk about it. Four years later, and Mandy McAuley was
:49:26. > :49:35.revealing another type of secret world. But this was one had been
:49:36. > :49:38.created by a killer. She met a young woman who was coming to terms with
:49:39. > :49:43.the fact that her father had murdered her mother almost 20 years
:49:44. > :49:47.before. At the end of the day he's my father and I love him and I can't
:49:48. > :49:51.help having those feelings for him and I don't apologise for having
:49:52. > :49:55.those feelings for him. I love him very much and, like I say, although
:49:56. > :49:59.I'll never understand how he could have done that, he is the only one
:50:00. > :50:15.really who can give me some of the answers that I need. It was the case
:50:16. > :50:17.of Colin Howell. Aided by his then-lover, Hazel Stewart, Howell
:50:18. > :50:24.had murdered his wife, Leslie, and Stewart's husband, Trevor Buchanan.
:50:25. > :50:26.The powerful series of interviews with the children of those involved,
:50:27. > :50:31.almost 20 years after the crime, with the children of those involved,
:50:32. > :50:34.made a big impression on audiences. Your mum has been convicted,
:50:35. > :50:43.unanimously convicted, by a jury of murdering your father. There are
:50:44. > :50:46.people watching who will say by standing by your mum you have in
:50:47. > :50:56.some way betrayed your father's memory. We love our father and our
:50:57. > :51:01.mother, you know? So we are not taking any sides. We wouldn't have
:51:02. > :51:07.wanted what has happened to her. Not ever to happen. But we have lost? We
:51:08. > :51:18.lost our dad and this? Nearly feels like we are going to lose our mum.
:51:19. > :51:21.The grace and dignity that they showed in those interviews, it
:51:22. > :51:29.really was humbling, very wise heads on young shoulders, very moving. And
:51:30. > :51:43.they had waited so long, they had waited so long to tell their side of
:51:44. > :51:49.the story. In a new, post-conflict Northern Ireland, Spotlight has
:51:50. > :51:53.changed with the times. But dealing with unanswered questions about the
:51:54. > :51:57.past will always be part of its role. And that's why, in 2007,
:51:58. > :52:00.Spotlight returned to an issue it has first looked at almost 30 years
:52:01. > :52:05.previously. The death and disappearance of Captain Robert
:52:06. > :52:14.Nairac. And when the programme makers set out on their
:52:15. > :52:18.investigation, they started here. The search began in the vaults of
:52:19. > :52:21.the BBC. And I remember in particular the day we went across to
:52:22. > :52:25.this big warehouse and found our way to one particular shelf and there
:52:26. > :52:29.was a box labeled Captain Robert Nairac and it was dated 29 years
:52:30. > :52:33.earlier. And you opened up the box and there were all these tapes from
:52:34. > :52:36.back then and in particular there were these documents. They were the
:52:37. > :52:40.transcripts of the different trials of various people who had already
:52:41. > :52:43.been processed for their role in the killing of Captain Robert Nairac. I
:52:44. > :52:47.was astonished to open up, all those years on, to have all that body of
:52:48. > :52:50.evidence ready to use. Which Roisin McAuley's team had left behind for
:52:51. > :52:55.us to follow up all those years later. I hope he could read my
:52:56. > :52:58.handwriting! One of the men involved in the killing had gone on the run
:52:59. > :53:02.immediately afterwards. He settled in America, and until Spotlight
:53:03. > :53:10.knocked on his door, he had never been traced. Terry McCormick has
:53:11. > :53:13.been on the run in America for the past 30 years. His account of what
:53:14. > :53:17.happened that night is exclusive to Spotlight, and it is the first time
:53:18. > :53:25.that anyone involved in the killing has spoken publicly. I ran in behind
:53:26. > :53:30.him and put my finger to the back of his head, hoping he would think it
:53:31. > :53:37.was a gun. I asked him for his licence. He turned around swiftly, I
:53:38. > :53:44.punched him in the face. I heard what I assumed to be a gun. Terry
:53:45. > :53:49.McCormick told Spotlight how he had been struggling to live with his
:53:50. > :53:53.part in the killing ever since. There's not a day that goes by that
:53:54. > :53:55.I don't say a prayer for Captain Nairac. Spotlight's two
:53:56. > :53:59.investigations into the death of Captain Robert Nairac - 30 years
:54:00. > :54:02.apart - both, in their own way, broke new ground. But the final
:54:03. > :54:06.chapter of the tale has yet to be written. And it remains to be seen
:54:07. > :54:23.if it ever will be. I'm very glad that someone followed through.
:54:24. > :54:27.Because Captain Robert Nairac's body is still out there and the IRA in
:54:28. > :54:35.South Armagh is simply not ready to give up its dead. Over the last few
:54:36. > :54:41.years, Spotlight has found itself doing a different kind of
:54:42. > :54:46.investigation. More and more in a post-conflict society, it's
:54:47. > :54:52.following the money. Is your family hiding millions? Oh, billions. In
:54:53. > :54:55.the past, Spotlight, like everybody else, would have been concentrating
:54:56. > :55:02.heavily on security and the world of paramilitaries. These days it is
:55:03. > :55:05.politics, it is business, it is all the more complicated areas. If we
:55:06. > :55:08.are going to move into a normal political environment, you are going
:55:09. > :55:12.to need fewer paramilitary experts and more accountants. The
:55:13. > :55:15.investigation into Sean Quinn's financial collapse and its
:55:16. > :55:18.consequences in Northern Ireland and the South took the spotlight team
:55:19. > :55:22.around the world. Well, it was such a complicated area which had such
:55:23. > :55:27.wide ramifications for the Border counties of Ireland, North and
:55:28. > :55:33.South. But also the wider Irish economy. And to explain this amazing
:55:34. > :55:36.money trail from Stockholm to Ukraine and ending up at literally
:55:37. > :55:46.this small keyhole post box in Belize. This is the registered
:55:47. > :55:58.office of a company which owns a $100 million in Moscow. It is
:55:59. > :56:01.difficult to see who else would have had the resources to do it properly.
:56:02. > :56:05.But that was a very effective investigation. So this is what $60
:56:06. > :56:10.million of prime retail real estate in Kiev looks like. I think it's
:56:11. > :56:13.really important in this day and age that there is still room for
:56:14. > :56:19.in-depth investigation where every stone can be unturned. One of
:56:20. > :56:21.Spotlight's most significant investigations in recent years was
:56:22. > :56:32.into financial issues surrounding Iris Robinson's affair with Kirk
:56:33. > :56:36.McCambley. I was asked to go to speak to somebody about a story
:56:37. > :56:39.which they thought they had and I went to speak to this particular
:56:40. > :56:43.person. This source. And they explained to me the gist of it and I
:56:44. > :56:47.looked at them and I just thought you are winding me up here, this
:56:48. > :56:50.can't be true. Spotlight revealed how Iris Robinson had solicited
:56:51. > :56:56.money from two property developers to help set her 19-year-old lover up
:56:57. > :57:00.in business. Two cheques, each to the tune of ?25,000, were made out,
:57:01. > :57:03.at her behest, to Kirk McCambley. How did you get the money? Two
:57:04. > :57:14.cheques. Written out to you? Yes, written out to me. I remember the
:57:15. > :57:18.day that the editor of Spotlight brought that story to me and told me
:57:19. > :57:24.about it. Do you think this is a story that we can do? And my answer
:57:25. > :57:28.to him was, not is it a story that we can do. On the basis of what you
:57:29. > :57:31.have told me, it is a story that we must do. Spotlight interviewed a
:57:32. > :57:36.former confidant of Iris Robinson, Selwyn Black, who set out in detail
:57:37. > :57:49.the sequence of events. In talking to the BBC, there is no personal
:57:50. > :57:58.gain in this for me. Sorry. The programme caused a sensation. It was
:57:59. > :58:00.one of the best pieces of investigate journalism, television
:58:01. > :58:05.journalism, certainly in this country, that I have ever seen.
:58:06. > :58:08.Revelation after revelation after revelation and the country must have
:58:09. > :58:20.sat and watched that with a sense of disbelief. But not everyone feels
:58:21. > :58:24.the investigation was worthwhile. I think as a unionist, I would say
:58:25. > :58:27.there are far more deserving cases that could have have? I mean, like
:58:28. > :58:31.the paedophile brother of the leader of republicanism has never been
:58:32. > :58:35.made. Why? But yet, people have a go at the unionist MP or the wife of a
:58:36. > :58:40.unionist leader who has medical issues. Would they have done that on
:58:41. > :58:43.anyone else? I don't know. The key point about that story was the
:58:44. > :58:47.?50,000. That an elected politician thought they could take ?50,000 from
:58:48. > :58:53.two property developers and do with it what they would. What part of
:58:54. > :58:56.that did Iris Robinson think was right? Spotlight, like Northern
:58:57. > :59:03.Ireland, has changed beyond recognition over the last 40 years.
:59:04. > :59:06.But some things are the same. In the future, the programme will still try
:59:07. > :59:10.to tell people the truth about things that matter and that they
:59:11. > :59:18.didn't know before. After all, as the old saying goes, life begins at
:59:19. > :59:22.40. It's wanting to ask questions about why and who and how and where
:59:23. > :59:32.and not wanting to take full hit for an answer. Clearly, the programme
:59:33. > :59:35.has been in rude health and continues to do the important thing,
:59:36. > :59:39.which is to find people in positions of power who are abusing people
:59:40. > :59:42.without power and kissing them right off. So here's to another 7000 years
:59:43. > :59:47.of Spotlight. # Happy Birthday to you. I think it is absolutely
:59:48. > :59:50.wonderful that it is 40. I will open a bottle of champagne. # Happy
:59:51. > :59:54.birthday to you. Happy birthday, Spotlight. Happy birthday, dear
:59:55. > :00:00.Spotlight. Happy Birthday. Giz a job! Stay safe up those lanes when
:00:01. > :00:02.you're trying to track men down who are potentially very scary. # Happy
:00:03. > :00:11.birthday to you.