A former regional press journalist who went on to become a film-maker working on investigative television programmes has died at the age of 70 after a long battle with illness.

Brian Barr, left, started his journalism career in the early 1970s as chief rugby sub-editor at the Sunday Post, before moving to a role as leader writer at The Herald in Glasgow.

He later became editor of the Glasgow News – a publication he produced at home and distributed round pubs and restaurants each Friday.

In 1975, he moved into television for BBC Scotland and worked on current affairs programme Current Account and chat show Three’s Company, before working on the Secret Society series with investigative journalist Duncan Campbell, which led to the “Zircon Affair”.

Brian, who died last week, was described by The Buteman newspaper as “a journalist and film-maker whose work was driven by an urgent need to make sense of the world and to communicate it to a wide audience”.

The controversial Secret Society programme, which was made in 1986, revealed that £500m of military spending on the Zircon spy satellite had been concealed from Parliament.

This revelation led to Special Branch raiding the BBC’s Scottish headquarters and seizing filmed material and master tapes.

An injunction was obtained by the government preventing transmission of the programme but underground screenings were held across the country and the affair eventually contributed to the resignation of BBC director general Alasdair Milne in January 1987.

The Secret Society programme relating to Zircon was not aired until September 1988 and soon after, Brian left BBC Scotland and moved to work as a producer on BBC and Channel 4 programmes in Manchester and London, including Panorama, Brass Tacks and Undercover Britain.

He worked for the channels throughout the 1980s and 90s, visiting some of the world’s most troubled places as part of his work, including Algeria during the country’s civil war, the West Bank and post-Glasnost Soviet Union.

Stories told by Brian of this time included talking Gaelic to the Israeli President’s security guards, eating cormorant with a crofter, having a gun trained on him as he tried to interview Yasser Arafat and constantly being arrested.

He was semi-retired, splitting his time between homes in London and the Scottish island of Bute, but never stopped working, co-writing a book with his brother Donald, making a series of short films for the Discover Bute project and writing a series of articles for The Buteman.

Brian is survived by his wife Pat, his son Colin from his first marriage to Jean, and grand-children Laurie and Stevie.