Simon Willerton's suicide in 1990 brought to six the number of young prisoners who hanged themselves in British prisons in just over six months. It prompted a public debate over conditions in remand prisons and Armley in particular, where overcrowding had reached such a level that prison officers refused to admit any new inmates. Simon faced a burglary charge over the theft of a hot-water bottle from an unoccupied flat. Less a hardened criminal than an immature, gawky teenager who never fitted in, Simon's tragic death inspired writer Vincent O'Connell and director Corin Campbell-Hill to tell his story.
Clarence Flamer hosts a late-night talk show on regional radio station North Star Sound. A phone call he takes one night leads to his discovering a mortgage scam being run by a group of estate agents. His attempts to delve deeper have tragic consequences.
Shoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.
