[jaguar]

It’s about a group of falsely accused Irishmen.
History:
As you know there was a large spate of bombings in Brittan by the IRA in the 80s (don't ask me exactly when) which led to the passing of a law that allowed the cops to hold a suspected terrorist for up to 7 days without pressing charges or access to a lawyer etc.. (Oddly similar to laws they are looking at passing in the US?) This led to a large number of false arrests and imprisonments who claimed to have confessions tortured (mentally and sometimes physically) during those 7 days. The most famous case of this was the Guilford four. Basically they were two Irish guys who went to Brittan to escape temporary trouble with the IRA and stayed in a place near bombing and a few other strange coincidences which led to them being picked up by the police and having confessions forced out of them. In the process the rest of their families were indicted on bullshit evidence as well. Evidence was falsified, and witnesses lied at the trial.

Years afterwards a British lawyer started investigating the case and was obstructed by the police for access to documents about the case. Eventually she managed to get access to all the documents at once and found a folder with the words "not for the defense" printed on it. This. Really. Happened. So of course there was a big-ass case about it and they were eventually begrudgingly acquitted.

A few things were modified for the purpose of the story, the biggest being that the REAL bomber, who was actually caught on another charge and admitted to the bombing (which was ignored by the police) was placed in the same prison as the lead of the story and a few other smaller incidents etc.. But the overall story was almost totally accurate, fact wise. Emotionally it was very manipulating though, leading it to be titled "based on a true story"

I’ve missed allot of the story here but you get the gist. Intersting quote: on another of the trials after it came out they had been falsely imprisoned by Lord British, high court judge was “it is better than an innocent man go to prison than the power of the british legal system be questioned”