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Press Releases
Radio 4 to play History's Witness
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91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 has been given exclusive access to the work of a unique police team in Northern Ireland – the only one of its kind in the world - which aims to solve 3,268 unsolved murders which took place during the troubles.
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History's Witness, a two-part series presented by the 91Èȱ¬'s Ireland Correspondent Kevin Connolly, begins transmitting on 2 July 2007 at 11am on Radio 4 and takes a look at the work of the Historical Enquiries Team set up two years ago to review every single unsolved death in the province from 1968 to 1998.
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"The Historical Enquiries Team truly face an enormous, and on the face of it, overwhelming task," says Kevin Connolly. "This process has never been attempted before anywhere in the world and has been devised entirely from scratch.
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"In History's Witness we get an exclusive insight into the work that has been done so far and also a sense of just how big a job this is.
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"We also tell some of the personal stories of the families who have had to live, sometimes for decades, without knowing what really happened to their loved ones."
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In the series Kevin Connolly meets the key players including the man in charge, former Metropolitan Police Commander, Dave Cox.
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One of the UK's most experienced policemen, the cases Dave Cox worked on during his police career include the Blakelock case, the Railway Murders and the Stevens' Enquiry.
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He gave up retirement to lead the Historical Evidence Enquiries Team.
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Malcolm Lear, a family liaison officer from Newcastle, also came out of retirement to join the team.
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Four families hoping to finally find the truth behind the loss of their relatives are also featured in the series.
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They include the family of a soldier from Brighton, shot by a sniper in 1971, who never dreamed their case would be taken up by anyone; and a catholic man from republican South Armagh whose entire life has been blighted by the murder of his three brothers.
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Subsequently he suffered appalling treatment at the hands of the security forces as his family was wrongly believed to be made up of IRA members.
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Winning the trust of a number of the families involved is one of the many hurdles ahead of the investigating team.
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Radio 4 Publicity
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