A BBC documentary will this week mark the 30th anniversary of the Dunblane massacre by telling the story of the parents, politicians and campaigners who came together in a bid to ensure such a tragedy could never happen again.
The powerful film, Dunblane:How Britain Banned Handguns, highlights how legislative decisions made in the aftermath of 1987’s Hungerford shooting led nine years later to an atrocity that shocked the world.
At around 9.30am on 13 March 1996, a lone gunman walked into the primary school in Dunblane, near Stirling, carrying four handguns and 743 rounds of deadly ammunition.
He murdered 16 primary one pupils aged just five and six and a heroic teacher, injuring 15 others in the worst firearms atrocity ever seen in the UK, before shooting himself.
The film, to be shown on BBC Scotland on Tuesday and BBC Two on Thursday this week features poignant contributions from Mick North who lost his daughter, Sophie, and Kenny and Pam Ross whose daughter Joanna was also murdered.
Pam says: “I remember tucking her hair into her hat and saying goodbye on the doorstep, and Kenny’s dad walking down the path with her and that was the last I saw her.”
The hour-long programme also features Eileen Harrild, the P1 gym teacher who was shot multiple times.
Mrs Harrild gives a chilling account of what happened over four terrifying minutes after the 43-year-old gunman burst through the doors of the gymnasium and started shooting.
She recalls: “He targeted the adults first. He shot me first and then he turned his gun on the two other adults in the gym and then started on the children.
“The shooting was continuous and rapid and he had intent in his eyes.”
The unprecedented tragedy led to the Snowdrop Campaign, with a petition signed by tens of thousands of people in a bid to bring about legislation to prohibit the private ownership of handguns.
Yet, despite the horrors witnessed at Dunblane, the campaign led by three local mothers Ann Pearston, Jacqueline Walsh and Rosemary Hunter, faced opposition.
Around 57,000 people in Britain owned handguns at the time, many for target shooting.
A public inquiry led by Lord Cullen stopped short of recommending an outright ban and a Home Affairs Select Committee agreed on the need for restrictions but stated a full ban was not appropriate.
The Conservative government led by Prime Minister John Major introduced the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which banned all cartridge ammunition handguns with the exception of .22 calibre rimfire in England, Scotland, and Wales.
It was not until after the 1997 UK general election that Tony Blair’s new Labour government banned the remaining .22 calibre handguns as well.
TV presenter Lorraine Kelly, who reported from Dunblane following the atrocity, breaks down as she recalls the events three decades ago.
She adds: “There’s an assumption now that this horrific thing happened and then guns were banned and that was it. Of course it didn’t happen like that.”
The documentary features Michael Forsyth, who was Conservative Scottish Secretary at the time, and former Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland George Robertson, who crossed their political divide to campaign for an outright ban.
Lord Robertson, who lived in Dunblane and had sent his three children to the school, acted as a spokesman for the victims’ families.
Lord Forsyth tells the programme: “We went into the gym and I’m afraid I lost it. That scene, I can see it now.”
He adds: “When I looked at that gym, I know this sounds a bit crazy, but all that was going through my mind was ‘if we’d acted at the time of Hungerford, this would never have happened’.
“From the moment I left that gym I was absolutely determined we were going to have to have legislation to ban handguns.”
Robertson adds: “The horror that the parents went through and continue to live with is always going to be greater than anything that came out of it.
“But I do, when there is another school shooting in America, take a degree of satisfaction from the fact that we stopped that from happening in our country. Because there is no doubt at all in my mind. If the law had remained the way it was, it would have happened again.”
* Dunblane: How Britain Banned Handguns will be shown on BBC iPlayer and BBC Scotland on Tuesday March 10, followed by BBC Two on Thursday March 12.
