Colin Firth to star in Lockerbie bombing series on Sky - who is Dr Jim Swire, what happened to his daughter?

Colin Firth will play Dr Jim Swire, the father of a victim of the 1988 Lockerbie Bombing in new Sky and Peacock series Lockerbie.

The five-part series is due to begin filming early this month, with Otto Bathurst, who directed episodes of Peaky Blinders and Black Mirror, set to helm the project.

The series is based on the book The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice by Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph, along with multiple other sources. Operation Mincemeat and Kingsman star Colin Firth was confirmed to take on the lead role in the series by Sky today.

Who is Dr Jim Swire?

Jim Swire, 88, is a doctor from Berkshire, who fought for justice in the aftermath of the 1988 Lockerbie Disaster in which Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up by terrorists over Scotland.

All 243 passengers, including Swire’s daughter, Flora, and 16 crew were killed, as well as 11 people on the ground, who were hit by the plane’s debris - it remains the deadliest terror attack on UK soil, killing over 200 more people than died in the London 7/7 attacks.

Swire’s daughter had booked a ticket on the flight from London to Detroit with plans to spend Christmas with her boyfriend. After her death, Swire became a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, a group representing British families who lost loved ones in the disaster. 

To demonstrate the problem of lax airport security Swire carried a fake bomb onto a British Airways flight from London to New York in 1990, less than two years after Lockerbie. 

He took another flight from New York to Boston, again carrying the fake bomb, made from a radio cassette player with marzipan in place of Semtex. He was able to board both flights, thus proving his point that security had not improved after Lockerbie.

Following the devastating attack which claimed the life of his daughter, Swire lobbied to bring the suspects in the bombing to trial. There was difficulty involved in bringing those suspected of planning the Lockerbie Disaster because there was no extradition treaty between Libya, where the suspects were from, and the UK. 

He lobbied for the two suspects, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, to be tried under Scots Law in a neutral territory, eventually selecting the Camps Zeist in the Netherlands which would essentially become Scottish territory for the purposes of the trial.

In 2001 Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison whilst Fhimag was acquitted. Swire later advocated for the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, without success. Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 as he had terminal prostate cancer - he died in 2012.