The father of a Lockerbie bombing victim has said people must “remember the consequences of terrorism” in the light of a recent terror attack in New Orleans.

Dr Jim Swire began his campaign for justice after the death of his 23-year-old daughter Flora Swire in the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am jumbo jet flying from London to New York, which claimed the lives of all 259 people on board, as well as 11 people on the ground in the Scottish town of Lockerbie, where the plane finally crashed.

The former GP, now aged 89, wrote his story in a book called The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice, which has been adapted into a five-part series for Sky, starring Colin Firth as Dr Swire.

Appearing on BBC Breakfast, Dr Swire referred to the recent vehicle attack which claimed 14 lives in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, saying people must “remember the consequences of terrorism”.

He said: “Even in these terrible times, with these sort of things happening like the truck in America we’re just hearing about today, we have to remember the consequences of terrorism are a lifetime for those families that are bereaved by the actions of terrorism.

“If we can’t find a better way than seeking revenge, then really the human race is not doing well.”

A British man, 31-year-old Edward Pettifer from Chelsea, was confirmed on Saturday to be one of those killed in the New Orleans attack.

Thirteen other people were killed and at least 35 more injured when the suspect, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, allegedly ploughed a pick-up truck through crowds of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans’ Bourbon Street before being shot by police.

Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden said the attacker posted a video which indicated he was inspired by the so-called Islamic State group.

Four decades after the Lockerbie bombing, for which only one man was convicted in 2001 – the former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – Dr Swire said the message behind the new TV series Lockerbie: A Search for Truth is to “get past the era of revenge”.

He said: “I do hope that this series will add to what we can find out about what this disastrous event was really about – and let’s try and get past the era of revenge and murder and slaughter and war, which looks so close to us now in 2025, and find a better and more humane way of dealing with each other than simply by murdering each other.

“That’s basically our message and that message is carried very strongly by Colin Firth and his team.”

Dr Swire also called for the US to “look afresh” at the events that led to the Lockerbie bombing, as the identities of those responsible and the motive behind the attack remain disputed to this day.

He told BBC Breakfast he and other bereaved families believe the Lockerbie bombing was an act of retaliation from Iran after their own Iran Air Airbus was shot down by US missile cruiser USS Vincennes in July 1988 – killing 290 people.

“Five months later, Lockerbie happened,” Dr Swire said.

“The facts seem to point towards Iran’s having engaged with terrorist groups, the chief one being the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command), didn’t worry about what that means, and get those people to act as surrogates, to get revenge.

“And revenge, of course, is an incredibly strong emotion that arises so easily in us human beings.

“But what is the point of getting another 270 people?”

Speaking about the new series, Dr Swire added: “I can only be astonished by the accuracy and the telling way in which all these people working together have produced so accurate a copy of what we’ve tried to do in our small way at one end of the scale, and where now we hope at the other end of the scale that a great country like America may come to look afresh at what happened in light of what the evidence actually shows.”

A Libyan suspect of the Lockerbie bombing, Abu Agila Masud, who is alleged to have helped to make the bomb, is to go on trial in the US in May.