Shoot to Kill

I had thought right away that because SHOOT TO KILL had the name Peter Kominsky in the credits I`d be watching an entirely biased , speculative infactual docudrama that portrayed Northern Ireland policeman as SS troopers while armed terrorists were going to be shown as being either fiesty freedom fighters or peace loving pacifists . I must say I was surprised

This docudrama revolves around the very real life case of the investigation brought against E4A , the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) elite undercover unit who were responsible for shooting dead several republican terrorists engaged in terrorist activities in 1982 . This led to the director of public prosecutions in Britain setting up " The Stalker Inquiry " where Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker ( Played here by Jack Shepard ) of Manchester police force investigated the cases to see if there were any unlawful killings by the RUC .

As I stated at the start of this review as was expecting there to be pro republican bias throughout but there`s none . In fact it`s a refreshing change to see terrorists in Ireland portrayed as terrorists with SHOOT TO KILL opening with a car bombing that murders three police reservists . The teleplay also shows the resentment shown by RUC men that the British state are investigating them when they`re engaged in a conflict against ruthless killers and Stalker is told " In the last year tweleve policemen , twenty eight soldiers and fifty seven innocent civilians have died at the hands of terrorists " , so thanks to the production team for pointing out that the IRA and INLA are not the boy scouts . The only thing the RUC men seen here are guilty of is that they falsified statements when engaged in their dangerous activities , and that they shot a couple of teenage boys who they genuinely thought were IRA members , and if after watching this you left unsatisfied by the conclusions the real life The Stalker Inquiry met the same fate as shown on screen here

The Shoot To Kill program was a riveting exposition of what really went on behind the headlines in Ulster, and revealed just a little about how far successive UK governments went to eliminate Republican guerrillas. I use the word deliberately because terrorists of one era more often than not end up being recognised by a later era as 'freedom-fighters'. The problem with the 'Troubles' in the northeastern six counties of Ireland (and note there is and never has been any such 'country' as 'Nortern Ireland' - and Ulster consists of nine counties not six) has always been that too many outsiders meddled and weighed-in with opinions based on total ignorance of recent as well as older Irish history. We Brits have much to answer for and instead of going to the root of the problems and resolving them chose instead to fight violence with violence; Shoot To Kill was only one aspect of the fight-terror-with-terror principles we adopted. All the thirty years did was to add just one more infamous chapter of 'British' one-sidedness in dealing with the Irish. Trouble is we're always right, right or wrong!

Having read the previous comment on this programme and being a resident of the six British occupied counties of Ireland from the catholic/nationalist community i feel the need to respond.

The RUC portrayed in this film are very different from the now defunct,real life sectarian force they were.the previous author is basically ignorant of the facts and truth about Irish politics.the RUC were a protestant militia with no intention of operating fair policing.their brutal actions have led to many deaths of innocent catholics and many leaked documents reveal their collusion with loyalist paramilitaries/protestant extremists in the targeting of catholics/nationalists/republicans.

The film itself leaves many questions unanswered and asks many more.to anyone wanting to know about Irish politics carry out some research then watch this.only then can you formulate an opinion