TV’s next big trial: the Wimbledon Common murder
After David Tennant’s acclaimed small-screen portrayal of serial killer Dennis Nilsen...
THE bungled undercover operation into the murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992 is being made into a TV drama.
The young mum was stabbed repeatedly in front of her two-year- old son, who was the only witness. Prime suspect Colin Stagg, who spent a year in custody, was eventually formally exonerated and awarded more than £700,000 compensation.
The four- part Channel 4 drama is set to star Harry Treadaway. The 36-year- old star of Penny Dreadful and Mr Mercedes has been cast as Detective Inspector Keith Pedder, who led the controversial ‘honey-trap’ investigation which involved an officer, calling herself Lizzie James, covertly setting up a pen-pal ruse to try to entrap Stagg into confessing to the heinous crime.
An Old Bailey judge called the Met’s treatment of Stagg ‘thoroughly reprehensible’.
My Name Is Lizzie has already announced that Niamh Algar, who starred in The Virtues on C4 and Calm With Horses (one of my favourite recent British independent films) will play the policewoman ordered to worm her way into Stagg’s life.
And I understand that award-winning Marsan, who plays Terry the punch-drunk boxer in Hollywood TV series Ray Donovan, and who has been in films ranging from Mike Lee’s Happy-Go-Lucky to Fast & Furious spin- off Hobbs & Shaw, is in talks to portray Stagg in the production written by Emilia di Girolamo and directed by BAFTAwinner Niall MacCormick.
Pedder retired from the force to write two books about the Nickell killing. He claimed that Scotland Yard tried to sabotage his efforts by making him a scapegoat for the lengthy, wasted hunt. In 2008, schizophrenic serial rapist and double murderer Robert Napper admitted the manslaughter of Rachel on the grounds of diminished responsibility.