Audience to get first look at film uncovering beach bunker drugs plot

A west Wales venue will host a pre-broadcast screening of a new documentary detailing Operation Seal Bay, a Dyfed-Powys Police investigation to take down an international cannabis smuggling ring.

Newport Pembrokeshire’s Canolfan Bethlehem will show the documentary on Thursday the 20 November starting 6.30pm, followed by a Q&A with the detectives on the case Don Evans and John Daniels, as well as the director James Hale.

The two-part documentary, called Cannabis Cove, details the police operation that took place in Pembrokeshire in 1983.

The police and authorities discovered a hidden hatch on the beach and beneath it lay a man-made underground room, stocked with food, radio equipment and fibre-glass resin.

Within days, arrests followed. Three men, Robin Boswell, Ken Dewar, and Sam Spanggaard, an escaped drug trafficker, were taken into custody.

Now, more than forty years on, a new two-part S4C documentary returns to the mystery with interviews and re-enactments.

The documentary reveals how officers found Cannabis Cove. While the first part of the documentary explores the discovery of the underground chamber and the arrests that followed, the second part expands the investigation’s reach far beyond west Wales.

The exclusive English language premier of Cannabis Cove: Operation Seal Bay will air in the very community where the mystery unfolded at the recently community-purchased Canolfan Bethlehem chapel.

The screening will take place at 6.30pm on Thursday, November 20 at Canolfan Bethlehem, Upper West Street, Newport. SA42 0TQ.

The event is not ticketed, but donations will be taken on the door to help support Canolfan Bethlehem community heritage, art and cultural centre.

For more information, visit Canolfan Bethlehem’s site here.