Lifting the lid on murder trials
An innovative new show blurs the boundaries of drama to explore the inner workings of Britain’s justice system. James Rampton reports.
When fact and fiction are mixed together, it can often produce an unhappy hybrid. However, the collision of the two genres works well in The Trial: A Murder In The Family.
In this innovative new British series, a real-life judge, lawyers, jury and professional witnesses try a murder case in which Simon Davis, a lecturer accused of murdering his estranged wife, and the non-professional witnesses are played by actors.
All along, the jury members have no idea which of the participants are actors. This melange offers a fascinating behind-closed-doors look at the mechanics of the justice system in the UK.
The idea for The Trial: A Murder In The Family was developed by director Nick Holt, who in 2013 made the acclaimed documentary The Murder Trial.
That won a Bafta and drew plaudits for its unprecedented access to a real court case.
Holt, though, said he felt stymied because there were still some elements of the process from which his cameras were excluded, including the privileged discussions between lawyers and their clients and the vital deliberations in the jury room.
So he teamed up with crime drama director Kath Mattock (Murder) to invent this new format that would take audiences closer than ever to the inner workings of a real murder trial.
Mattock believes that this format lends itself well to conveying the goings-on in a real courtroom.
“During rehearsals, only three actors knew the truth, and we tried to maintain that all the way through the trial. Concepts like ‘truth’ and ‘story’ are very subjective in a
courtroom, so the trial had a natural fluidity within the confines of the legal process.”
The real-life lawyers were certainly taken by the accuracy with which the producers of The Trial: A Murder In The Family recreated an actual trial.
Prosecuting barrister Max Hill QC, who has 30 years’ experience at the bar, says: “It seemed like a very good window into courtroom practice. It demonstrates two sides of an adversarial contest and so shows you how things are really done, unlike in drama where things are greatly exaggerated.”
The plausibility of the endeavour was underlined by the fact that, just as he would be in reality, Hill was called up at the last minute to work on The Trial: A Murder In The Family.
He explains that, “I accepted this on the Wednesday before the trial began on Monday, rather as I would accept a very late instruction to prosecute a murder in real life.
“We did what we normally would to present as clearly and cogently as possible and were left to run our case as we wished. We took to it as if we were doing our day job.”
Brian Barker CBE QC, a retired judge who was the most senior judge at the Old Bailey in London, presides over the court in The Trial: A Murder In The Family.
He confesses that he was a little wary about the project but was soon won over after working on it.
“I was fairly sceptical about this series, but I was quickly very impressed by the professionalism of the production team.
“With anything that’s condensed into 60 minutes of entertainment, you see the highlights rather than the reality. But here they wanted it to be realistic and to show the process in a far more balanced light.”
Another accurate aspect of The Trial: A Murder In The Family is the scenes filmed with 12 ordinary citizens in the jury room.
Some of these sequences may raise eyebrows. For example, at one point a jury member says about the defendant, “He looked guilty. He looked very worried, very grey, very strained.”
The ultimate proof that The Trial: A Murder In The Family is realistic is the fact that the participants found it completely all-consuming.
Michael Gould (Ashes To Ashes), the actor portraying Simon Davis, says, “Playing Davis for 10 days in court, I found it hard to disconnect at times.
“I was in a hotel during the trial and kept separate for much of the day. I tried to relax away from court.
“But I knew how involved I had become when I was waking at 4am, worrying about what a piece of evidence might do to the case.”
“It demonstrates two sides of an adversarial contest and so shows you how things are really done, unlike in drama where things are greatly exaggerated.”
– Max Hill QC