Drunken squaddies documentary was not unfair, watchdog rules

BRITAIN’S Independent Television Commission has ruled that a TV documentary about drunken British squaddies in Cyprus was not unfair to the army.

In July, Channel 4 screened a controversial documentary entitled ‘Squaddies On The Rampage’, which outlined in detail events leading to the 1994 murder of Danish Tour Guide Louise Jensen and also interviewed British tourists who had been attacked by drunken squaddies.

Viewers had complained that the show was an attack on British soldiers in general. However, the Independent Television Commission said depicting “a few bad apples” did not necessarily mean the “whole barrel is rotten”.
British bases authorities were furious after the screening of the documentary, which painted squaddies in Cyprus as a bunch of violent drunks of whom locals and tourists lived in constant fear.

A sizeable portion of the one-hour programme featured anti-bases campaigner Marios Matsakis in what was billed as “a story of havoc and violence, a catalogue of crime that has ultimately strained relations between the UK and Cyprus.”

The bases called the entire programme “unbalanced” and “just a platform for one of the main anti British protagonists… Dr Matsakis.”