Researching Paul Rose

On October 10, 1970, the cell kidnapped Quebec Deputy Premier Pierre Laporte. Laporte's strangled body was found in the trunk of a car on October 17. Rose was among those convicted of the kidnapping and murder.

Rose was educated at Bury Grammar School and Manchester University. He was chairman of the Manchester Federation of Young Socialists. He became a barrister, called to the bar by Gray's Inn in 1958.

He became Chairman of the Manchester Left Club and edited a youth page for "labour's Northern Voice" and led the Suez Demonstrations in Manchester in 1956. His main interests were industrial safety, Northern Ireland and civil liberties, and he was active in the field of human rights, not least in relation to Greece under the rule of the Colonels.

Rose was elected Member of Parliament for Manchester Blackley in 1964. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Barbara Castle at the Ministry of Transport and after 1970 spoke for the Labour opposition on industrial relations. He was also a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. He stepped down in 1979, and later joined the Social Democratic Party in the 1980s.

Rose noted discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland and in the early 1960s was one of the first to predict The Troubles. He became Chairman of the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster, Chairman of the North West Sports Council, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party Home Office Group. He served on the Council of Europe and was Vice-Chairman of Labour Campaign for Europe. He was also founder and Chairman of the anti-cult organization Family Action Information and Rescue. He became a coroner in the south of London. He was a Deputy Circuit Judge and a Part Time Immigration and Political Asylum Adjudicator. An atheist and humanist, Rose was a member of the British Humanist Association, which later invited him to be one of its patrons.

Rose was the editor of six books on law, politics and history including Backbencher's Dilemma, A History of the Fenians In England and The Moonies Unmasked after publishing The Manchester Martyrs. He also contributed many articles to newspapers and magazines on History, Law and politics.

He died on 3 November 2015, at the age of 79. He was buried with a humanist service.

In 2006, Rose presented the 5-part BBC Four documentary series Voyages of Discovery.

In 2008 he co-presented the 8-part BBC Two documentary series Oceans.

In 2011 he co-presented the 4-part BBC Two documentary series Britain's Secret Seas.

Since the mid 2010s, Paul Rose has been involved with a number of walking documentaries made as part of the BBC's commitment to regional programming. In 2016, his 5-part programme Coastal Path series showed Rose on the 630 mile South West Coast Path, with the series originally broadcast as a regional BBC One show for people in the south west and Channel Islands. Coastal Path would go on to be repeated nationally for viewers on BBC Two in the following years and would end up as a BBC Four programme, last broadcast on 27 July 2021.

In 2017 Rose presented a 2-part BBC One documentary on the Yorkshire Wolds Way, a walk of around 80 miles from the Humber to Filey, on the North Yorkshire coast. During the programme, Rose explored the wildlife and geographical features of the landscape he encountered. In the second part of the documentary he took a dramatic glider flight from the Wolds Gliding Club, Pocklington, over part of the Wolds Way.

In 2018 he presented the four-part BBC One series The Lakes with Paul Rose, about the English Lake District.