The Cost of Truth

Paul Derry

Paul Derry lived at the core of a violent underworld. Embedded deep in outlaw networks as an RCMP Informant and Source Agent, he operated in the shadow of the Hells Angels as they expanded into Atlantic Canada and across Ontario.

Derry’s testimony, from the last of his many operations, was crucial to one of the longest-running organized crime murder prosecutions in Canadian history—spanning 19 years, three trials, and an open contract on his life.

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Derry surfaced into his new life and quickly faced systemic failures in witness protection; he tried to raise the issues in every safe and legal way he could.

When that failed, he did what seemed right: he spoke the truth. It cost him everything.

Featured internationally on National Geographic’s Locked Up Abroad and The History Channel’s Outlaw Bikers, Derry is the author of three investigative books, including Treacherous and Inside a Police Informant’s Mind. Today, he brings his classified handler notes, wiretaps, and 26 years of survival to The Cost of Truth.

Our mission is to expose the realities of informant handling, witness protection negligence, and systemic institutional failure through unflinching, fact-based storytelling. By deconstructing nearly two decades of high-stakes testimony, undisclosed intelligence memos, and subsequent civil accountability battles against the RCMP and the Department of Justice, The Cost of Truth demands transparency, challenges administrative immunity, and sparks meaningful legal and policing reform.

Foundations

Uncompromising Authenticity: Sourced directly from official trial records, disclosure documents, and firsthand accounts.

Institutional Accountability: Confronting negligence and manipulation within all aspects of the Justice System.

The Cost of Truth is a true legal-procedural docudrama unfolding inside courtrooms, guarded hotels, secure meeting rooms, and the private negotiations surrounding one of Canada’s most consequential Crown witnesses.

Based on the firsthand accounts and published work of former long-term RCMP informant Paul Derry, the series dramatizes the extraordinary legal battle that followed the October 2000 execution of Sean Simmons. Derry becomes trapped between violent criminal retaliation, impending prosecution, police intelligence failures, and a justice system that urgently needs his testimony—even as elements within that system resist what his evidence could expose.

The series follows the case as it develops behind the courtroom doors: lawyers constructing strategy, police handlers negotiating cooperation, prosecutors assessing risk, witnesses being prepared, and Derry being moved between hotels, safehouses, legal meetings, and heavily protected court appearances. Every conversation carries consequences. Information becomes leverage, loyalty is continually renegotiated, and the truth must survive the competing interests of the criminals, investigators, lawyers, and institutions surrounding it.

With the narrative momentum of a premium courtroom drama—but grounded in real events, authentic procedure, and serious human consequences—The Cost of Truth places viewers inside the legal and personal struggle rather than observing it from a distance. Dramatic scenes are supported by documentary evidence, firsthand testimony, handler records, and court proceedings, allowing the story to unfold as it was experienced while preserving its factual foundation.

Produced by Scion Media Group, the initial three-part series begins with the Simmons homicide, Derry’s negotiations with police, and his transformation from covert informant to protected Crown witness. It culminates in his arrival at the Supreme Court under extraordinary RCMP protection—opening the door to a larger series chronicling the trials, institutional confrontations, and multi-decade fight for accountability that followed.

The Cost of Truth is ultimately about what happens when one man’s testimony becomes powerful enough to threaten both the criminal world he escaped and the institutions that brought him inside.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

The Cost of Truth locks audiences inside a 19-year courtroom battle where every word on the witness stand carried a death warrant. Transported by heavily armed ERT teams and testifying under their watch, Crown witness Paul Derry faces ruthless cross-examinations and the Hells Angels hitmen he wore a wire to convict. But the real war extends far beyond the trial: fighting the RCMP and the Department of Justice in multiple lawsuits, this explosive film series exposes a broken system and the relentless battle to hold corrupt institutions accountable.

Ready to help us turn this page-turning life into a must-watch series?
Contact us directly through our website to explore partnership opportunities and learn how your financial support will make THE COST OF TRUTH and other exciting stories a reality.