Gerry Conlon is shown in Belfast stripping lead from roofs of houses when security forces home in on the district with armoured cars, and a riot breaks out. Gerry's father, Giuseppe Conlon, later saves him from IRA punishment, and he is sent off to London to stay with his aunt, Anne Maguire, for his own good. Instead, he finds a squat, to explore, as he puts it, "free love and dope". In October 1974, Gerry happens to gain entry to a prostitute's flat and he steals the £700 he finds there and chats briefly with a man sitting in a park. On that evening in Guildford, southwest of London, there is an explosion at a pub that kills four off-duty soldiers and a civilian, and wounds sixty-five others.