It is now more than 20 years since a motion came before Northern Ireland's Assembly asking for an urgent investigation into how children could be better protected getting on and off school buses.
He has written several books about the Welsh bard and holds an important collection of his letters, photos and memorabilia.The outburst in Strand Films was unusual, he argued.
"He got into trouble when he was drunk, but he was a pacifist in his own way."Towns said Thomas, who was only 5ft 6in (1.68m), always said he was above average height "for Wales"."He knew he was small, but if a big soldier came in and started being jingoistic he would challenge them and get thrown out on his backside," he said.
"He didn't fly off the handle a lot - there are a couple of times when things went a bit wrong - but by and large he was passive and talked his way out of problems."The poet's fans were his worst enemies in some ways, he said.
"In America his favourite whisky was a bourbon called Old Grandad.
"People would turn up at his hotel room with a bottle and want him to drink it in front of them.But two widely shared images actually showed previous Indian air force jet crashes - one from an incident in Rajasthan in 2024 and another in the Punjab state in 2021. Both crashes were widely reported.
Prof Indrajit Roy of York University said that the images "are being generated with a view to get support for the military in Pakistan". One clip circulated by the Pakistani military itself was later withdrawn by news agencies after it turned out to be from an unrelated event."We have jingoists on both sides of the border, and they have a huge platform on Twitter (X). You can see how fake news, as well as some real news, gets amplified, distorted and presented in ways designed to generate hostility, animosity and hatred for the other side."
The conflict in Kashmir has long attracted a high degree of misinformation online. In the aftermath of the deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month, AI images circulated - with some seeking to dramatise actual scenes from the attack.Vedika Bahl, a journalist with France 24, said the Pahalgam attacks had prompted a sharp "uptake in misinformation from both sides surrounding the conflict".