In 1989 a small-time courier called Paul Thorne carried a package of drugs from Bristol to Glasgow. He never went home, and his body has never been found. Three men were convicted of his murder. One of them, Ricardo Blanco, the Mad Spaniard, told his own version 17 years later.
The run from Bristol
Thorne was working for dealers from the St Paul's area of Bristol, named in court as associates of Blanco. The package was for Blanco and his partner in Glasgow, John Paul McFadden, who the press said liked to call himself Tough Tony. Neither man lived in Glasgow. Blanco, born in Paris and raised in Spain, had lived in Bristol for 12 years. McFadden lived in Rugby.
Blanco's former associates told the film he boasted of serving in the French Foreign Legion. That cannot be verified. They also said he was obsessed with guns and killing, and described him smashing a wine bottle over a man's head in a restaurant in Easton.
Thorne's girlfriend travelled with him. She felt the atmosphere was menacing and demanded to go home by train. That instinct, the film says, quite likely saved her life.
Fenwick Moor
The prosecution's case was that Thorne was driven to a remote spot at Fenwick Moor, south of Glasgow, and shot, and that the others were made to fire too so that no one could inform on the rest. The alleged motive was to keep the drugs and avoid paying him. McFadden, Blanco and Thomas "Tosh" Collins were found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow and given life sentences. Thomas Currie gave evidence against them.
The film asks the obvious question. If these men ran the international drug ring the police described, why risk it all over a few grand and a small-time courier?
The Spaniard's story
On his release, Blanco told a newspaper that he fired first but deliberately wide, and that McFadden and others then shot Thorne. He said McFadden had pulled a gun on him in a flat in Parkhead, that he had argued to let the courier's girlfriend go, and that he got stuck in mud before he could act. He claimed the body was later moved. The girlfriend's evidence at trial backs part of his account: she heard shouting in the kitchen, and Blanco saying no.
The film is not convinced. Why, it asks, did he go back to Bristol and tell nobody what had happened?