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  • Arthur

I got my torch ready… Steve, Fantasma, Icarus ?

…from The Guardian…

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1089676,00.html
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Plane drama takes off for ITV

Jason Deans
Friday November 21, 2003

ITV is developing a docu-drama about the ordeal suffered by the group of English planespotters who spent 37 days in a Greek jail after being arrested on suspicion of spying.
The drama, Planespotters, is expected to focus on the story of the only woman among the group of 12, Lesley Coppin, and her husband Paul, who organised the ill-fated trip to Greece in November 2001.

Greek police arrested the couple, along with 10 British and two Dutch companions, outside the Kalamata military base on November 8 2001.

The group of planespotters were charged with taking pictures of Greek Air Force planes in a military zone and spent the next 37 days in jail, before being released after raising the required £9,000 per person in bail money.

Ms Coppin was held on her own in a jail at Korydallos, near Athens, while the 13 men were detained in a prison in the Greek town of Nafplion.

The planespotters originally faced the charge of spying, which carries a 20-year sentence, but this was reduced to misdemeanour charges of illegal information collection, which carry a five-year maximum term in jail.

However, they were eventually cleared of all charges by a Greek court in November last year.

Paul Coppin had organised the trip through his Suffolk-based planespotting tours company Touchdown.

The ITV drama controller, Nick Elliott, has asked writer Neil McKay to script the show.

McKay has previously scripted a number of fact-based dramas, including In Denial of Murder, the BBC show about the Stephen Downing miscarriage of justice case, and Wall of Silence, the ITV project about the 1997 murder of 17-year-old Jamie Robe.

Planespotters is being developed for ITV by Granada, as a 90-minute one-off drama.
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It will probably be an awful “happened for real!!!!”-tuesday night TV film… i just hope that it won’t be too insulting to the people involved. Not just the Greeks, but for the planespotters as well.

I do suggest Belarus for a massive, high-budget, thrilling and action-packed blockbusting sequel :p

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