Don’t miss the 7/7 ‘truth’ play now showing at the Oxford pub in Camden, June-July: “Outright terror, bold and Brilliant”. this is Peter Neahey’s 3rd play. It dramatises the plight of the four ‘patsies.’ It is (if I may say so) based upon my book, Terror on the Tube.’


This play will be re-showing later this year. It has dramatic sequences in it, bringing vividly to life the four young men who were inveigled into taking the trip to London town, and how it dawned on them that they were set up: indeed, we wish these scenes had lasted a bit longer. These action-sequences are carefully based upon what was disclosed at the 7/7 Inquest in 2011.  All the people I asked in the audience said they had really enjoyed and appreciated this play. Sir Ian Blair who was then the head of the Metropolitan police makes an appearance, where the format is of a court hearing. It’s an imaginary court, where the innocence of the four young men can be defended.   The play’s author has the central role, in carrying the thread of the story. We are made to realise just how extraordinary a story it was, as the plot twists and turns. Let’s hope there can be some way of getting this drama through to a wider audience.

the Inquiries Act 2005

On April 6th 2005, an shocking Act was passed through Parliament just a few months before, to control any ‘public enquiry.’ Of this Amnesty International said, ‘Any Enquiry would be controlled by the executive, which is empowered to block public scrutiny of state actions.’

the Guardian:

Rushed into law on April 7, the last possible day before parliament was dissolved, the act gives ministers powers to exclude the public from all or part of an inquiry, to control publication of the final report, to restrict the publication of documents, to insist on the omission of crucial evidence from the final report “in the public interest”, and even to sack the chairman or a member of the inquiry panel.

The act abolishes the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, which guarantees independence by giving inquiry chairmen a free hand in all important decisions.

Lord Saville, the law lord who presided over the Bloody Sunday inquiry, has told the constitutional affairs minister, Lady Ashton, in a letter that he would refuse to take part in any inquiry allowing ministers to control public access. He wrote that the act “makes a very serious inroad into the independence of any inquiry; and is likely to damage or destroy public confidence in the inquiry and its findings”

Let’s have one more quote about this act, which one could really call the 7/7 Act, from Judge Peter Cory:

It seems to me that the proposed new Act would make a meaningful enquiry impossible. the minister would have the authority to thwart the efforts of the enquiry at every step. It really creates an intolerable Alice in wonderland situation. 

I never heard about this Act, I reckon Peter Neahey has discovered it in the present context.

 

 

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