- 11 years ago
Documentary (2003) 60 minutes ~ Color
17 years later, Jo Tuffnell faces the man who killed her father with an IRA bomb.
Directed by Paul McGuigan, this 66-minute English documentary revolves around the healing journey of a teenager whose father was killed in an IRA bombing. After years of coping, she finally comes face to face with the man who set off the bomb.
Director: Paul McGuigan
Stars: Geraldine Somerville, Jo Tuffnell
17 years later, Jo Tuffnell faces the man who killed her father with an IRA bomb.
Directed by Paul McGuigan, this 66-minute English documentary revolves around the healing journey of a teenager whose father was killed in an IRA bombing. After years of coping, she finally comes face to face with the man who set off the bomb.
Director: Paul McGuigan
Stars: Geraldine Somerville, Jo Tuffnell
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Well, sadly, we start with the news that early this morning, a major bomb explosion rocked
00:13the Brighton Hotel, where Mrs Thatcher and other Conservative leaders are staying.
00:17Tonight, the figures are dead two, missing two, 18 of them still in hospital.
00:26How dare you, you know, how dare you think that my father was worth killing for, for what you wanted to do, you know, how dare you think that?
00:35This is the story of a woman coming face to face with the man who killed her father.
00:42I'm known in the media as the Brighton bomber.
00:48The death of Joe's father, my responsibility for that, has brought us together.
00:54The meeting begins a journey of reconciliation that takes them to places they never could have predicted.
01:01Neither knows where it will end.
01:05In the world, you don't go and meet people that kill your father, you don't, you don't sit and talk to them.
01:13It completely turned everything upside down.
01:15I remember walking down the street and thinking, if anyone knew, people don't know what I've done.
01:22In the early hours of October the 12th, 1984, the IRA blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Tory leaders had gathered for their annual conference.
01:49Five people were killed, many others were injured.
01:58Joe Tufnell's father, Sir Anthony Berry, a junior minister and member of the royal household, was among the dead.
02:09Joe was 27.
02:15I've come back to St. James's. I remember coming here two days after the bomb went off.
02:23And I remember I had this huge need to get up and just say what I really want to pray for is that I have the strength to not become bitter and angry
02:33and that out of this appalling tragedy of this bomb that somehow some peace can come.
02:44For the next four years after the bomb, this is where, one place where I would come.
02:52I would come and play the piano and the piano was a way of expressing all sorts of feelings.
03:05Patrick Magee was convicted of the terrorist bombing and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
03:13He thought he would be in jail for the rest of his natural life.
03:17But just 14 years later he was controversially released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
03:30I think I was in denial about the whole thing then and didn't want to know.
03:39I think I'm just remembering seeing a photo and just looking and trying to see some sensitivity there or some remorse and there clearly wasn't any.
03:59I will have to say that I knew I was going to be in jail for a long time.
04:06I certainly didn't expect to be released after 14 years and it was 14 years to the day.
04:14I felt I had gained years. I expected to get out in sort of early middle age so I got out before I was 50 and that's a good feeling.
04:25But of course there are some people who just would have me flee out alive still and there's a lot of dimensions to the hurt and trauma that has still to be addressed.
04:42I do remember the first time I really thought about him which was when he was in jail.
04:48I do remember thinking I'd like to write to him to ask why he'd done it.
04:56It was just too difficult and I think in the end my fear always stopped me from actually sending it off.
05:07Patrick McGee had left prison armed with a first class degree and a PhD in contemporary Irish fiction.
05:13He had no prospect of getting a job and no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
05:37There's this misconception that if you're in the Republican movement you're in it for life.
05:42It's a theme in a lot of the trash literature. Once in always in.
05:46But in reality when I left jail in 1999 I just didn't report back.
05:52I didn't physically present myself and say is there anything I can do here so I'm no longer a part of the movement.
05:56For Jo, the release of the man who killed her father turned the clock back 16 years to 1984 and the moment of the explosion.
06:11I relived the whole day again. It was a brightened day. I relived it. It was almost like it was happening for the first time.
06:18It was almost like the feelings were even stronger. I remember thinking how can this be? I've grieved. I've dealt with this. Why? Why is this all coming back?
06:38The IRA bomb aimed at the heart of the British government and the devastation it caused.
06:44A short while ago it was confirmed that one of the dead is the MP for Enfield Southgate, Sir Anthony Berry, who was Treasurer of the Royal Household.
06:58My sister woke me up. She heard a bomb had gone off and she woke me up.
07:03Neither of us knew where he'd been staying. He was meant to be staying at the Metropole, which is down the road to the Sister Hotel to the Grand.
07:10But he changed at the last minute because there was a cancellation, so we weren't sure where he was staying.
07:16So we rang up my brother, who had dinner with my father the night before.
07:24So he told us it was the Grand where he was staying and he said, I'll just go and have a look.
07:30Of course, it was utter chaos there. No one knew anything. And then he rang up with news that they'd found my stepmother, who was badly injured.
07:49And then there was no news of my dad. My sister and I started watching on telly because the Conservative Party conference went ahead. It started.
08:01I remember we watched that, just thought we would see him, which is completely mad because he would never have been there if his wife had been injured.
08:10We were sort of just hoping against hope, I suppose, that we would see him there.
08:16And then finally the news came that they found a body with a ring, a signet ring, and my brother's got the same signet ring as my father.
08:29So my brother gave them his ring to check and yes, it was the same ring.
08:36I actually left the flat at that point and went to get something called rescue remedy.
08:42And I remember walking down the road with my hand, I was just going, dad's dead, dad's dead, just over and over again.
08:50And I remember some people looking at me and going, are you all right? I went, no, I'm just going on walking.
08:57Didn't get the rescue remedy.
09:07It felt like something was cut from me, didn't know who I was or anything. It was the beginning of a very, very long journey.
09:16During Patrick Magee's imprisonment, he was taken to a hospital where he was admitted to.
09:23During Patrick Magee's imprisonment, Jo made a number of trips to Ireland, trying to make sense of the conflict that acclaimed the life of her father.
09:34At the back of her mind was the thought that one day she might come face to face with the man who killed him.
09:43If you did meet the man who killed your father, how would you cope with that?
09:49I don't know. I mean, it's a question which I won't know till it happens.
10:05In the summer of last year, I heard that somebody called Jo Tufnell would like to meet me.
10:14I was prepared for it. I think given the backdrop of the misrepresentation of the public movement, censorship of the Republican cause,
10:23that there is an obligation, if you can find a platform for explaining things, you should take it.
10:34Unexpectedly, Patrick Magee agreed to a single meeting. For Jo, it was the point of no return.
10:44The biggest fear I had about meeting him was, does this mean this is the end of my journey?
10:53And there's nothing more to do? Nothing more to say? That's it?
11:02I only knew the morning that I was going to meet him.
11:07I only got the go-ahead at half-past nine in the morning as I'm hoovering the floor and sorting out the children's food.
11:13And the phone call came to say, you can meet him this evening at half-past seven.
11:18I wasn't anxious that I might meet a woman who would express her rage in some way.
11:27That actually wasn't the fear. It was just the, how would you put it, the import of the moment.
11:36I'm meeting somebody whose father had killed, whose life had affected so deeply, and I wasn't prepared for that.
11:46On November the 24th, 2000, Patrick Magee and Jo Tufnell met at a secret location in Dublin.
11:56I think he was terrified. I don't think he knew what I was going to do. Maybe physically hurt him. I don't know.
12:08It was a highly charged three hours in which they only scratched the surface of what had brought them together.
12:16It defeats everything I believe in. It goes against so much in me.
12:22And I can understand someone else is feeling hurt, especially from Brighton, that this could be betrayal.
12:32And I have a part in me that has felt that this is a betrayal of my people to build this bridge with the enemy.
12:46And yet another part of me which is stronger says, no, no, this is the opposite of betrayal.
12:52This is actually about healing and forgiveness and acceptance and it's about love and it's about finding new ways and it's actually more important.
13:04Jo wanted to meet again. Pat said yes.
13:08They set a date two weeks later and this time agreed to be filmed.
13:16Hello Jo. What was it like coming across? Stormy? Choppy?
13:21Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:23Let's get in that car. It's going to be wet. Are you OK? Have you got a coat? You'll need it.
13:29Have you any bags?
13:31Can I take that one? I left my Mac in there.
13:40I would have thought about this and brought a coat along.
13:45I'm far to walk.
13:49There's no right for me to sit here and be forgiven.
13:54I mean in a sense it's a political thing. I knew what I was doing and I would even defend actions I've taken, etc.
14:01But when it comes down to it, I'm sitting with somebody who's affected by my actions.
14:08As I said to you, it's something I've wanted almost since the moment the bomb went off.
14:13I knew, like in the moment, what I wanted to do was bring as much positive out of it as I could.
14:22And I saw very clearly that at the end of that journey would be sitting down and talking to the people who did it.
14:30Braden, from our perspective, was a justified act.
14:35Your father was a part of the political elite, the Tory government, etc.
14:40In that sense, there's that cruel word, cruel expression, he was a legitimate target.
14:48Meeting you, though, I'm reminded of the fact that he was also a human being,
14:54and that he was your father, and that he was your daughter's grandfather, and that's all lost.
15:02Before I left this morning, I decided to tell my children that I was going to meet you.
15:08I told my seven-year-old, and she said, I want to come.
15:12I want to tell him that it was a bad thing he did to kill my mum's daddy.
15:17I want to tell him. Can I come, she said.
15:19I said, well, no, but you can write it down and I'll tell him.
15:22No, she said, I must come and tell him.
15:25She really wants to tell you. At age seven, she feels furious.
15:29I think it's very important to be confronted with the consequences,
15:35to be confronted with your pain.
15:37That's a consequence that I suppose I deserve.
15:43It's something I have to go through.
15:46I'm going to nearly retain my humanity, because, as I said,
15:52at a certain stage in my life, I made tremendous, enormous decisions
16:00that have consequences for other people.
16:03And it probably is part of it, the healing,
16:07because there's always a price to pay for it, in terms of my humanity.
16:17Jo's role is quite remarkable.
16:21I think she was just completely open,
16:24completely open to try and understand what had happened.
16:28And she describes it as our relationship,
16:31she talks about a relationship as the most fractured she has.
16:35I suppose she has this sense of the human family or whatever,
16:40and that unity.
16:43But then, because I killed her father,
16:47there's a fracture there in that whole fabric of, you know,
16:51and she's trying to heal that.
16:53Because that's what her life's about, her own spirituality is about.
16:58There's so much integrity and bravery in that,
17:02and it's extremely impressive.
17:05I was just amazed at how open he was.
17:09You know, he said to me,
17:11I want to hear your anger, I want to hear it all,
17:15I want to hear what happened to you that day, I want to hear it,
17:18I want to know.
17:21I couldn't have predicted that, couldn't have.
17:28So there were some feelings of elation
17:33that there was actually a new journey starting.
17:49And then, just like in the days after Brighton,
17:54when I just felt I had to reinvent myself
17:57and the whole world had gone crazy and mad,
18:00after meeting Pat, there was a similar feeling.
18:03For a few weeks, I go, what world was I living in?
18:07In the world, you don't go and meet people that kill your father,
18:12you don't sit and talk to them.
18:25The feelings that I've been going through recently
18:28are very much concentrated on my family
18:31and the other Brighton victims.
18:34It's how are they going to feel about him saying,
18:38Brighton worked, you know, am I actually causing more trauma
18:43to people who've already been suffering by doing this?
18:48He has to say, Brighton worked, he has to, I can understand that.
18:53I have to say, Brighton didn't work.
18:57But to me, I have to say, violence never works, never.
19:03And that's quite a gulf between us.
19:11Born in Belfast in 1993,
19:15born in Belfast in 1951,
19:18Patrick Magee had moved to Norwich when he was five.
19:22He always felt an outsider in England.
19:25So, aged 19, he returned to his birthplace,
19:29by then in the throes of a violent conflict.
19:33Soon afterwards, he joined the Provisional IRA.
19:38There isn't, thinking back on it,
19:40there isn't one single action that led me to join the IRA.
19:47You see, one of the big ironies in my life
19:50is at one point I would have called myself a pacifist.
19:53At the age of 15, 16, if you asked me, that's what I would have said.
19:59Then you had the injustice of partition
20:01and there was no constitutional or political means of rectifying
20:05or political means of rectifying that.
20:08So I would justify the armed struggle
20:11and I suddenly had responsibility for, you know, violence.
20:16You know, and it did not come natural to me.
20:21And yet, you know, you did it clinically, you know.
20:25You did your damnedest to do it.
20:36You knew the enemy was, well, it was a two-front.
20:39The enemy was your political enemy, Stormont,
20:42and it was also the British state that propped them up
20:45and turned a blind eye to them.
20:47And it was that British state that was responsible
20:51for all the terrorism on the streets from the British army.
20:55By the early 1970s, the British government's policy was internment.
21:00Patrick Magee was interned without trial for two years.
21:04It was his point of no return.
21:07He became committed to a strategy of attacking mainland Britain.
21:13I've never been so grounded in my life.
21:15I knew exactly what I was going to do when I got out of jail.
21:20I was getting out of jail to take a war to England.
21:23I was getting out of jail to volunteer for the army.
21:26I was getting out of jail to take a war to England.
21:29I was getting out of jail to volunteer for active service in England
21:32because I recognised that's where the war could be won,
21:36that if we really wanted them to listen,
21:40we wanted our political enemies to listen,
21:42we had to take the war to England.
21:46While Patrick Magee spent most of the next eight years
21:49pursuing IRA targets in England,
21:52at the other end of the political spectrum,
21:54Joe's father, Sir Antony Berry,
21:56was the epitome of the English establishment.
22:01London, at St Margaret's Westminster,
22:03Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother graced a society wedding
22:06attended by 800 guests.
22:08After the ceremony, the bride reappeared on the arm of her groom,
22:11the Honourable Antony Berry, youngest son of Viscount Kemsley.
22:14There were 12 small attendants, three pages and nine bridesmaids,
22:17sharing the limelight with a happy couple.
22:23Five years after the marriage, Joe was born into a life of privilege.
22:28She grew up in the company of prime ministers,
22:31but felt increasingly stifled by the requirement to conform.
22:37During her mid-teens, she rejected many of her family's values,
22:41but a year before his death, she became close to her father again.
22:46My relationship with my father changed over the years.
22:50And what I'm remembering is how it was in the few months
22:53before he was killed,
22:55when we became friends, very close friends,
23:00with an acceptance of each other
23:03and a maturity to our relationship.
23:06But I have very, very fond memories of him.
23:10He had six children and him playing with us,
23:15teaching me to swim,
23:17and he had many wonderful qualities about him.
23:21He was very gentle and very loving to us all.
23:26If I hadn't had those moments,
23:28there would have been a lot more of a,
23:30why didn't I say that to him?
23:32And obviously, there is still that, you know,
23:35there's loads of regrets and why,
23:37but he never met my children
23:39and didn't see his two youngest children grow up,
23:42so I don't know.
23:44But in terms of my relationship with him,
23:46I felt we'd got to a really wonderful time
23:49and, yes, it was a loss that we didn't enjoy some of that closeness.
23:58By February, the need to explain her motivations to her own children
24:03propelled Jo towards another meeting with Pat,
24:06this time in County Wicklow.
24:08I don't know whether you remember, but last time we spoke,
24:12I was telling my seven-year-old where I was going
24:16and she was very angry with you, wasn't she?
24:19You said to me that before I came to meet you,
24:23my seven-year-old daughter says,
24:26you tell him he's a bad man
24:29and, well, that's something I'll have to handle.
24:33You tell him he's a bad man
24:35and, well, that's something I'll have to carry.
24:40And I do want to know, what did you say to her after meeting me that time?
24:45Well, she never mentioned it until yesterday morning.
24:49She said, where are you going?
24:51And I told her I was going to see you
24:53and she said that she was very angry
24:56and then said, is he sorry?
24:59And I said, yeah, he's very sorry that Grandpa had to die.
25:04And she said, oh, well, does that mean Grandpa can come back now?
25:11And there's some truth in that, you know, in me as well,
25:15that with her seven-year-old wisdom,
25:22her seven-year-old understanding of the world,
25:25and I have that as well,
25:27if we can talk now
25:30and if I can understand what it is that drove you to violence
25:35and I can hear it,
25:38why, why did my dad have to die?
25:42Yeah, you said there, like,
25:44I probably did use those words, I wouldn't doubt it for one moment,
25:48that her grandfather had to die.
25:52I suppose there's a sense where I could try and justify that statement,
25:58but I think the only statement that really needs to be made
26:01is that nobody had to die, nobody should have died.
26:06We... I just wish there had been another way, though.
26:15The first time we met, you said,
26:17I want to hear your anger, I want to hear it all.
26:21I remember me saying that, I suppose I should say something about that.
26:25It was... I'll tell you what I meant,
26:28what I think I meant at the time.
26:30The hardest thing for me to listen to as a human being
26:36is somebody forgiving me,
26:40more than that understanding why, you know, he killed your father.
26:47That's the hardest thing.
26:49I mean, if you'd have been angry, perhaps I could have found it easier,
26:54an easier situation to...
26:59..you know, to understand.
27:05Over three months had passed since they'd first met.
27:09Jo had become consumed with worry about the reaction of her family
27:14and the other Brighton bomb victims to her meetings with Pat.
27:20I still feel extremely challenged by the whole journey
27:25and have gone through a lot of self-doubt.
27:30This could hurt so many people that there's...
27:33It is a huge responsibility and that can overcome me
27:37and make me feel I'm not up to it and doubt myself.
27:45On the way out here, I was reading something Norman Tebbit had written.
27:50I was very moved by his pain and felt huge compassion for him
27:54and I want to be able to say to him and the others from Brighton,
27:58you know, I do care about their pain and their struggle
28:02and I know this could be hard.
28:15The first time I met Jo,
28:17I was dealing with the daughter of somebody I'd killed.
28:22The subsequent meetings,
28:24there was more to that simple perception of a victim.
28:33So, you know, you're...
28:35Suddenly you're talking to somebody close,
28:38you're talking to a family member,
28:40you know, you're...
28:42Suddenly you're talking to somebody close,
28:44you're talking to a friend, in effect.
28:50You can forget that I killed her father.
28:53I can literally forget about it
28:55because I'm not getting the feedback to remind me.
29:03A lot of traumatic memories are getting, you know,
29:06are surfacing because of this work
29:09and she has enormous difficulties still to get over
29:13in regard to bringing her family on board.
29:18So I don't know how it's going to pan out.
29:22We are approaching Drupada.
29:24Will passengers leaving the train at Drupada please...
29:28For his part, Pat was increasingly moved by his meetings with Jo.
29:33By early summer 2001,
29:36he had become actively involved with various conciliation groups.
29:42It's the 30th of May.
29:44I've been out of prison now 23 months.
29:50And during the last four, four-and-a-half of those months,
29:54I've been trying to establish a causeway project
29:57to facilitate other encounters
29:59between former combatants, victims, etc.
30:02And, in fact, this is the next stage to that
30:05at 5.25pm I'll be getting a flight to South Africa.
30:12I'm at the stage now
30:14where I want to feed directly into other conflict areas,
30:20see how they've handled this whole issue of bringing, for example,
30:26victims and casualties, former combatants together.
30:36As Pat was flying out, Jo was in Westminster.
30:41She had arranged to meet Harvey Thomas, another Brighton bomb victim.
30:47In 1984, he was the Conservative Party conference organiser
30:52and was pulled alive from the rubble.
30:56Jo wanted reassurance that her meetings with Pat
30:59would not cause more suffering to the other victims.
31:05Harvey, just one question before you go.
31:07Was there anyone with you in that room?
31:09No, nobody at all.
31:10Nobody at all in that room?
31:14You know, I turned on the telly to watch Pat being released from prison
31:18and it was a huge shock.
31:20But I had this strong feeling of just, like, anger,
31:25you know, that you can walk free, you know, and my dad is dead.
31:29The thing is, you know, when Patrick came out of prison...
31:32Yeah.
31:34..a lot of people were asked what did they think,
31:36should he be released and all the rest of it.
31:39And my instinct for years after Brighton was,
31:43no, they should serve life.
31:45That was my sort of gut feeling.
31:48And then when the releases came, I was asked what I thought
31:52and should we sort of harass them?
31:57And then I thought, no, you can't.
31:59The law says whether or not we agree with it.
32:02They've done their time.
32:04What would you say to this idea that me meeting Pat,
32:08I am betraying the Conservative Party, my family, people?
32:12No, of course you're not.
32:14You have to decide how you want to behave
32:16and you have to do it with your own conscience.
32:18And actually, if you believe it's right, and I do,
32:22in a personal sense, I wouldn't believe it was right
32:25if I went to Pat McGee and said,
32:27on behalf of somebody else, I forgive you.
32:29I think that would be utterly wrong.
32:32But you making contact for yourself,
32:34of course you're not letting your father down.
32:37You're actually...
32:38In fact, I suspect he would be extraordinarily proud of you.
32:42You know, that you've had the courage
32:44to do what you think is the right thing to do.
32:50The amount of terror that I can feel
32:53about some of the steps I have to make the next couple of months,
32:56you know, it's just huge.
32:59People say I'm brave, but actually I'm totally terrified.
33:02But meeting you as part of that is strengthening the part of me
33:05that knows this is right, and that's what's so important,
33:08you validating what I'm doing.
33:10I have tremendous admiration for what you're doing
33:12because when I think of my daughters, Leah and Lani,
33:16how they would feel if I had been killed since they were born,
33:21it would take enormous courage,
33:24which I'd like to think they would both have as Christian girls,
33:27to do what you've been doing over the last 14 years.
33:30So, I mean, I think you should stick with it, and good on you.
33:34Let's have a hug.
33:35I look forward to the next time.
33:37You take care of yourself.
33:38Hey, you're up at the right height up there, aren't you?
33:40You should stand up.
33:50I'm sure that during future encounters,
33:54the big area that Jo and I will focus on is the issue of violence.
34:00She has great difficulty with my intellectual support
34:05for the idea that violence could never be totally ruled out.
34:10I think sometimes people just have to defend themselves.
34:18These thoughts of your father,
34:22you said that for a long...
34:25I'm not too sure they'd understand you at this point,
34:28but they've been quite intense recently, since our last meeting.
34:31Yes.
34:33What do you think's happening there?
34:36I think I was ready.
34:39And I think my daughter's having a huge impression on me
34:45with her experience of what I'm going through
34:47and what she's bringing to me.
34:50She wanted to know what you said last time,
34:53and she said,
34:55I do still want to kill him.
34:58But she said it with this sort of huge smile on her face.
35:02And then she said,
35:04Have you asked him why he's done it?
35:06Why he planted the bomb?
35:08And I said, Yes.
35:10And she said, Why?
35:12And I said,
35:14Because that was the only way that he felt he could be heard.
35:19And she said, But didn't he know Grandpa was there?
35:23Didn't he see Grandpa was there?
35:26And I said,
35:29No, he didn't know it was him.
35:34I mean, I find that...
35:39I find that painful.
35:41Well, you're aware that it was a Tory political establishment
35:48that was being targeted.
35:51But it was her grandfather, I know,
35:55and there's no crossing that distance.
35:59What about those that, even now,
36:02believe they can't be heard
36:05and likely to kill more people?
36:08When is it right?
36:13When is the suffering worth it?
36:16The bombs are still going off.
36:18There's still people who believe violence is right.
36:22When does that end?
36:24I wouldn't claim to have the answers to that one, Jo.
36:29I would say that,
36:32if there is an answer,
36:35it lays somewhere in this,
36:41that when politics work,
36:44when everybody sees that they work,
36:47and that there are alternatives to violence,
36:51then progress will be made.
36:54Unfortunately, not everybody is on board with this process,
36:59and there are still people
37:02who profoundly distrust British intentions,
37:06Irish intentions, Unionist, Loyalist, whatever,
37:09Republican intentions.
37:11So that's what you're dealing with at the moment,
37:14and the violence is a symptom of all that distrust.
37:19It's probably not a very satisfactory answer.
37:31On the 11th of June,
37:33news of an international event had unforeseen repercussions for Jo.
37:38The execution of the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh,
37:42touched a raw nerve.
37:44Jo started to record her thoughts on a home video camera.
37:48When we walked in the room, we saw him just a few feet in front of us,
37:52and he was wrapped tightly in a white sheet.
37:54He almost looked like a mummy,
37:56and he deliberately lifted up his head and looked at one of us.
38:00In fact, I didn't even see him blink once
38:03after they started administering the drugs.
38:05Very, very sad.
38:08This was called justice,
38:10and this was called closure for the victims,
38:13and this was...
38:15..this was how violence...
38:19..how violence was seen as the right way to deal with it.
38:24At one point, he filled up his cheeks with air
38:27and then just kind of let it go,
38:29but I don't believe that was his last breath.
38:31There was still some shallow breathing that followed.
38:34I remember my eldest child had said,
38:36what's the death penalty? We never talked about it.
38:39And I said to her, she said, that's gross, she said.
38:42That's revolting.
38:44She said, are there people alive
38:46who believe it's right to kill someone?
38:50He said, yeah.
38:53Yeah.
38:54I don't think he gave himself to the Lord.
38:56I don't think he repented.
38:58And personally, I think he's in hell.
39:00I don't believe, like, revenge and...
39:05..killing someone who's hurt you is the answer.
39:10And when any of those victims realise that,
39:12they won't have the chance to have, like, further to go.
39:18I'm glad I live in a country
39:21that has said no to this type of event
39:24and has made an example of this man.
39:27I don't want to judge the victims that want him dead.
39:30I don't... I understand what...
39:33..their feelings, why they would think that...
39:37..would make them better.
39:41The victims of the Oklahoma City bombing
39:43have been given not vengeance, but justice.
39:48The many, many issues here...
39:52..we're all responsible.
39:58HE SIGHS
40:04Hi. Hi. Isn't this beautiful?
40:06You brought the rain with you?
40:08It's all the way from home. It's very late, Gary.
40:11Later that month, they met again, this time in Snowdonia, Wales.
40:16It's warmer here.
40:21You came back on Sunday, yes?
40:24So you were there for the execution of Timothy McVeigh.
40:29And I felt really, really upset.
40:35People feeling that...
40:38..the victims, understandably,
40:40feeling that this was going to bring them healing
40:44and bring them some kind of peace or closure
40:47to their own experience.
40:49That if they didn't hear his name any more, that would be the end.
40:53But what really, really saddened me,
40:56apart from just the pain of the families of everyone involved,
40:59was also just that...
41:02..the chances of a journey 10, 20 years on, you know,
41:05for any of those victims and for Timothy, for what we have...
41:09I'm not saying everyone needs to do what we're doing,
41:12but to have that choice is what it's about, you know.
41:15Who now, no-one can hear his story. It's gone.
41:21I think I agree with everything you've just said there.
41:24I find myself agreeing without any difficulty.
41:29I mean, if somebody hurts somebody belonging to you,
41:33I think there's an obvious need for justice
41:39and for some form of recompense.
41:43But I think you can...
41:45You have to ask, what's that achieved with the killing of Timothy McVeigh?
41:49He's a young man who knows what realisations he might have come to
41:54further down the road, if allowed.
41:57I mean, it might seem so ironic for me to be talking
42:01in terms of opposition to death penalties
42:04after coming out of an armed struggle.
42:07But as I said earlier,
42:09I honestly believe fundamentally that violence arises out of weakness.
42:13But you have a state that has all the power
42:18and yet resorts to violence.
42:20And there's something wrong there.
42:22I mean, there's something really reprehensible about that, I think.
42:28The other thing about Timothy McVeigh that I think did also hit home
42:34was that if we had the death penalty here in Britain,
42:38would we be talking now?
42:40Of course.
42:43And I remember talking to my father about the death penalty
42:47and I think I remember he was for it.
42:54It's just one of those things that...
42:57I just believe fundamentally that if you have the power, you don't abuse it.
43:02I see that as an abuse.
43:13PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
43:32I don't see Pat as a bad man.
43:43I see Brighton as a result of many, many factors,
43:50which are very complex.
44:01I suppose there's an idea that someone who's killed my father
44:05must be a certain way,
44:07and how the press has seen him
44:10reinforced that way.
44:13And the truth is very different.
44:21We make people into perpetrators.
44:27And we all can be.
44:30We all can become that, we can all become...
44:33When the desperation becomes too much,
44:36then the pain gets too much.
44:39The desperation of not being able to change things gets too much.
44:43Then that can become an answer, taking up violence.
44:54The expression, you know,
44:56there for the grace of God go I.
45:00PIANO MUSIC FADES
45:08It's the first time I've been in England,
45:12other than being in jail in England,
45:15since the time I operated here,
45:17so a lot of very mixed feels, of course.
45:22I think it is an act of personal reconciliation
45:25in the sense that because England was so formative in my own upbringing,
45:30because I spent all those years here, 15 years,
45:35and I've been distanced from it,
45:38this is my chance to just get reacquainted
45:42with that very important part of my life.
45:50Well, this is Arm Street in Norwich,
45:53the place where I was brought up from the age of four till I was about 19,
45:57moved here in 1955.
45:59One of the things I gave a lot of thought to while in prison
46:02was returning to Norwich one day,
46:05just retracing the steps as a child,
46:08or, you know, reawakening memories.
46:13Walking around Norwich, there was a freedom there
46:17because it was there legitimately.
46:21But I still felt a bit wary, you know.
46:25I'm saying, what if somebody's seen me,
46:27who knew me from all those years ago, how would they react?
46:30Who would they be dealing with?
46:32They wouldn't be dealing with me,
46:34they'd be dealing with some misrepresentation.
46:37And I said, how do you get over that?
46:40So, again, from that direct experience,
46:42it's kind of reinforced everything I've been trying to do,
46:46you know, arising from these encounters.
46:50Just the British public in general, you know.
46:53I convinced them, you know,
46:55that it might be a way in for them to understand the Irish conflict.
47:01That's you.
47:03That's fantastic.
47:05So easy to swim in.
47:07Ten months after their first secret meeting,
47:11Joe and Pat had come to terms
47:13with their journey of reconciliation becoming public.
47:18OK, if I can ask you to swap over, just...
47:21Joe, come on over here this time.
47:23When I look back on the last year,
47:26it feels like I've had a crash course in learning about myself.
47:31OK, last one, move over here a little bit.
47:34It's been a challenging journey,
47:36but what I've learnt, I feel enriched and by.
47:40If you face yourself out this way,
47:42you can just turn your head back towards me, yeah.
47:45I feel much more alive,
47:47much more able to be connected with people.
47:50Do you have to wait to stop for a second?
47:53There's an angle where you close it the right way.
47:56Parts of me that I've denied and tried to push away,
47:59I've had to embrace to accept it.
48:02So, it's been a great journey,
48:05and I've learned a lot from it.
48:09So, it's been an incredible journey of transforming myself,
48:14and that is what I think it's all about.
48:17I can only change myself.
48:27It's a beautiful spot, though.
48:29It's beautiful, yeah.
48:30It might not be at the point, you see, of the hot weather.
48:33The what?
48:34The hot weather here.
48:35Yeah.
48:36Hotels and...
48:37Yeah.
48:39So, if you look back, it's ten months since we first met?
48:45November, yes. That's right, ten months.
48:47It's now September.
48:49Mm-hm.
48:50Could you describe how the ten months have been,
48:55what it's meant to you,
48:57and the steps on your journey that you've been on?
49:02Well, it's provided me with a purpose
49:04that, I suppose, before wasn't there,
49:08I'd have thought that I'd have probably got involved
49:10at some level in the Republican movement, you know,
49:14either working with prisoner groups,
49:16or even in Sinn Féin, there was a possibility.
49:19But that hasn't happened, but it could so easily have happened.
49:23But, as I said, my energies have been thrown into this now.
49:28Mm-hm.
49:29And, of course, I'm glad this is what I want to do.
49:33Do you remember, because our second meeting,
49:37you said that taking up violence meant that there was a cost,
49:43and that cost was at the expense of your humanity,
49:48and that meeting me was a chance to reclaim some of that humanity.
49:54How do you feel now about those words, that experience?
49:59Yeah, that's... Yes, I'd stand by that.
50:03I'd stand by that with no problem at all.
50:05It does feel like that.
50:07You know, there's a...
50:09I suppose you're replenishing something, I don't know.
50:12Something's been taken, or something's lost,
50:15or it's been hidden away, and you're in touch with it again.
50:19You know, and...
50:21But it's also a sadness, you know, it's a sadness,
50:24because, unfortunately,
50:28I still hold to the view that the conflict was necessary.
50:34I really...
50:36Even, you know, even now, in the midst of all the trouble
50:39in North Belfast, etc,
50:42which a lot of people view with despair, you know,
50:48you say, how do you tackle issues like that?
50:52The hatred there has been there for ages,
50:55and you drag it against the people who were powerless and didn't,
50:58didn't have the means to really counter it.
51:01Now they do have those means, you know, but then they didn't.
51:09This is so beautiful here.
51:12I think I'd like to live here.
51:14Nearly one year on,
51:16Joe and Pat have made a unique journey
51:19of understanding the cause and the cost of violence.
51:25This meeting took place on September 9th, 2001.
51:36This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Centre.
51:39You can see the firemen assembled here,
51:41the police officers, FBI agents,
51:43and you can see the two towers.
51:45A huge explosion now, raining debris on all of us.
51:48We better get out of the way!
51:54I'm in shock. No words can describe the feelings.
51:57Right now, there are people trapped, still alive.
52:07The heartbreak, the trauma,
52:10the pain that's too much to bear.
52:12Those waiting and waiting.
52:14I remember waiting.
52:18OK.
52:24What happened in the States was a despicable act.
52:27The audacity of it. The planet went into it.
52:30But even beyond that, it was just the scale of the carnage.
52:40How dare anyone use violence to get their message across,
52:46to express their hate, to get their needs met?
52:52How dare anyone think they were right to do that?
53:02There is no equation between what happened there
53:05and what happens in Ireland.
53:08The more there are glib similarities,
53:12that's probably the wrong term to use,
53:14to be similar is the extent that you have incidents
53:17of people having to dig bodies out of rubble,
53:20we're all too familiar with, from the last 30 years of conflict.
53:23But the motivations are different.
53:27The flight of the two planes into the World Trade Centre.
53:31It was a deliberate decision made to kill civilians.
53:38I feel like ending the documentary.
53:42I don't want to rethink what I'm doing.
53:47Am I making their suffering worse by doing this documentary?
53:56If I was them, I wouldn't want to meet those that...
54:05..organised it.
54:08What would I know?
54:13Despite her reservations, Jo decided to continue her journey.
54:1817 years after the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel,
54:22four days after the shock of the World Trade Centre,
54:26and one year after meeting Patrick Magee,
54:29Jo Tufnell returned to Brighton.
54:33I'm reading about the peace protesters take to New York streets.
54:40And thousands of people had a candlelit vigil
54:43and waved placards warning against war.
54:48Respect the dead, say no to more killing.
54:51An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind.
54:55A week ago, I was sitting looking out on the Atlantic
55:00and here I am a week later on Brighton Beach
55:06having just been to the Grand.
55:13You just can't tell with the hotel.
55:16It feels like it's completely healed.
55:19You know, and I know there are sort of emotional scars
55:22and physical scars.
55:24And there's also this feeling of the now...
55:30..the person who was charged with bombing Brighton
55:35is now someone who I've met.
55:39And here I am at the hotel that he was in.
55:43And it's just...
55:46And here I am at the hotel that he bombed.
56:04There is a feeling of completion
56:08in that I've now heard his story
56:14I've heard it, I understand more.
56:18It has helped my own healing to hear his story.
56:23And that's what it feels like the 17 years have been about.
56:44Joe Tufnell has been instrumental, I think,
56:47in causing me to really examine things about the past
56:52that I wouldn't have examined otherwise.
56:55You know, getting in touch, I suppose, with my own humanity.
57:04Words can be uttered, I forgive you.
57:07It doesn't mean anything.
57:10Words can be uttered, I forgive you.
57:12That doesn't mean to say the pain has vanished,
57:15the trauma has vanished.
57:17I am responsible for things and I have to live with that.
57:22But I would never think in terms of seeking forgiveness.
57:26And I wouldn't ask them to forgive.
57:28Why should they forgive?
57:30Just to understand it's the best achievable
57:32and it's all I would hope for, you know.
57:40The first time I met Pat, he said to me,
57:44I want to help in any way I can.
57:47And I was very moved by those words.
57:51And as we left, I got up and then he said to me,
57:55I'm really sorry I killed your father.
58:02And then he left.
58:09MUSIC
58:39MUSIC
59:09MUSIC
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