VIGIL bosses hired an SNP councillor and anti-nuclear campaigner to make the hit BBC show, The National can reveal.
Ex-submariner Feargal Dalton, convener of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities Scotland Forum (NFLA), was enlisted to act as a consultant on the Scotland-set thriller, which centres around Trident nuclear submarine HMS Vigil.
It follows detective chief inspector Amy Silva, played by Suranne Jones, as she investigates the death of a crew member who was found on board the submarine.
READ MORE: Vigil: BBC viewers complain about Martin Compston storyline
The show also stars Martin Compston and Rose Leslie and is made by the team behind Line of Duty. Episode five airs on Sunday night.
Dalton, from Dublin, spent 17 years in the Royal Navy before leaving to become a physics teacher. The father-of-three is married to SNP MP Carol Monaghan.
He entered the navy in 1993 and became lieutenant commander of a Trident-missile submarine.
He's drawn on the expertise gained through that role in his latest posting as naval advisor on the hit BBC show, which also stars Paterson Joseph and Daniel Portman.
Dalton, who now opposes the Trident system, was contacted for comment by The National.
In 2016, he told The Guardian how, as weapons engineering officer in charge of the missiles, he fired a Trident D5 on a US test range off the coast of Florida from the HMS Victorious as a demonstration and shakedown operation.
READ MORE: Vigil and the true story of the Antares trawler sunk by a submarine
Earlier this year, he spoke out after Glasgow City Council passed a resolution supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
He said: "We also call on the UK Government to not just engage with this treaty process, but to completely reverse its current policy of increasing the number of Trident warheads stored just a few miles from Glasgow at Faslane."
A BBC spokesperson said: “The World Productions team consulted a range of advisers and experts to make Vigil, including Mr Dalton who had no editorial input but offered factual insight from his long career as a member of the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service.”
Dalton was contacted for comment.
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