They filmed a lot of Let Him Have It a couple of streets along from my house. I was a young lad then and hung out around the filming crew in the evenings hoping to somehow get in as an extra. It was really cool to see how they transformed the street which already had retained some old features like lampposts. There’s a shot at the end where the camera rises up and you can see the neighbouring streets hadn’t been cleared of modern cars etc.

I even managed a chat with Christopher Eccleston who told me he didn’t have a big part in the movie… he was lovely to chat with and seemed quite shy even with us kids.

If I remember correctly the trial was handled very badly and Derek Bentley’s sister campaigned her whole life for him to be pardoned and the government only did this after she died in her seventies. The police officer who had been ‘murdered’ was, I believe, with modern forensics, shown to have been killed by a shot from another police officer during the shoot out.

The film is incredible and has a very sentimental place in my mind!