September 29, 2005
Falsely Accused!
1. The A-Team
L-R: Lt Templeton "Face" Peck, Col John "Hannibal" Smith, Capt H.M. "Howlin' Mad" Murdock, Sgt Bosco "B.A." Baracus".
In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire The A-Team.
2. Christopher Lambert
"A Prison of the Future. A High-Tech Hell. Built to Hold Anything... Except an Innocent Man." It is the year 2017. When his wife is found to be pregnant with an illegal second child (they lost the first one! THEY LOST IT!), Christopher is imprisoned in a state-of-the-art underground hellhole. He eventually escapes with the assistance of an enormous truck. Rumours that Warwick Capper (as "Braindead Prisoner") contributed to John's escape would seem to have some merit.
3. Daniel Day Lewis
A happy-go-lucky, hard-drinking petty thief who liked to chase girls, Daniel Day, in the Jim Sheridan film In The Name Of The Father, was arrested in 1974 under the newly-introduced British Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which allowed Police to hold a person suspected of terrorist activities for up to seven days without charging them and without providing them access to a lawyer or a magistrate. He was interrogated, physically beaten and deprived of food, water and sleep by police who wanted him to confess to the IRA bombing of a pub in Guildford. He protested his innocence until the last day when he signed a confession under the impression that he would be able to later retract it. He, along with three others who together became known as the "Guildford Four", were convicted and imprisoned on the strength of their forced confessions. Appeals failed. After fifteen years, the files hidden from Daniel Day's defence lawyers were discovered and he was released, an innocent man.
4. Gerry Conlon
As per Daniel Day Lewis, above. Oh, except it actually happened to him.
But don't worry, our anti-terror laws expire in ten years.
Filed under Politics
