WHISTLE BLOWERS
Sunday 2 May 2004 8.50pm-9.30pm; rpt 1.50am-2.30am; Thursday 6 May 12.30am-1.10am (Wednesday night)
Cases like those of MI5 agent David Shayler and government scientist David Kelly have highlighted the fate of those who choose to speak out of conscience.
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Maxwell Fraud
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Tom Ware
Time Shift Series Editor
Gerry Dawson's documentary explores the developing culture of whistle blowing in this country since the Suez Crisis first proved to us all that government was neither fair nor accountable.
Seeing some of the stories of persecution and extraordinary moral courage in the face of the government and corporate threats, is to really appreciate that whistle blowers like Sarah Tisdall, Tony Fernandes and Harry Templeton (who first exposed the financial scandal of Robert Maxwell's looting of the Mirror pension fund) didn't enter into their campaigns lightly.
But there is one possible silver lining to this cloud of ongoing institutional hostility: as campaigning journalist Duncan Campbell notes, the unprecedented and genuinely open government provided by the Hutton Inquiry may, at the end of the day, be Dr Kelly's lasting legacy.
