17 Facts About Jim Swire

Herbert Jim Swire was born in Windsor, Berkshire, the son of Roger, a colonel in the British Army based at Windsor Castle, and his wife Otta, the daughter of Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn.

Jim Swire spent part of his childhood on the Isle of Skye, and attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied natural sciences.

Jim Swire then worked for the BBC as a technologist before training to be a minister in the Church of England at Ridley Hall theological college.

Jim Swire met his future wife Jane at Cambridge, and it was she who persuaded him to turn his career ambitions towards medicine.

Jim Swire became a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, a group of family members of those who had died in the air crash.

Jim Swire planted a memorial woodland for his daughter, known as Flora's Wood, near their home in Gloucestershire.

On 18 May 1990, Jim Swire took a fake bomb on board a British Airways flight from London's Heathrow airport to New York's JFK and then on a flight from New York JFK to Boston to show that airline security had not improved; his fake bomb consisted of a radio cassette player and the confectionery marzipan, which was used as a substitute for Semtex.

Some American family members asked Jim Swire to keep the news of the stunt quiet; it became public six weeks later.

Jim Swire went to America, the United Nations, Germany, back to Libya and then visited cities throughout the United Kingdom.

Jim Swire was present, and when the verdicts were announced on 31 January 2001, acquitting Fhimah and convicting Megrahi, Jim Swire fainted and had to be carried from the courtroom.

Jim Swire met Abdelbaset al-Megrahi for the first time on Wednesday 16 November 2005 and spent an hour with him in the governor's office to ask Megrahi whether he would still press for the SCCRC to continue its review of his case if Megrahi were repatriated to Libya.

Jim Swire said Megrahi stated he would continue to pursue a review, and Jim Swire added that UKF-103 would press for a review if Megrahi did not follow through.

Jim Swire was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme a few hours before the SCCRC announced its decision.

In October 2007, Jim Swire offered to lawyers trying to prove the innocence of al-Megrahi.

Jim Swire expressed his approval of the release but disappointment that the appeal had been abandoned.

In January 2012 Jim Swire travelled to Tripoli to meet with Megrahi, before the latter died in May 2012.

Jim Swire was played by Colin Firth in Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, a Sky Television miniseries based on the book The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father's Search For Justice, which Jim Swire co-authored with Peter Biddulph.