Suave, educated, middle class . . . the crooked banker fooled us all
The devil is in the detail. All of banker Lukasz Rybarczyk’s protestations, that he was being framed for theft by a shadowy band of organised criminals, sounded plausible until a receipt for £12.95 turned up.
The Accused (C5) was crammed with detail. The latest example of an emerging television genre, the real-life police investigation, it followed 32-year-old Polish immigrant Lukasz from the moment of his arrest, giving viewers access even to sensitive conversations with his solicitor and barrister.
We saw and heard far more than the jury could, not least because so much of it would be inadmissible in court — Lukasz’s tearful conversations with his 13-year-old brother, for example.
Lukasz was a banker, but not the sort that gets millionpound bonuses. he worked for a high Street bank as a customer liaison officer, and stood accused of siphoning £26,000 from an elderly client’s nest-egg into his own account.
When police first confronted him, he seemed oddly calm — but perhaps that was a sign of innocence, born of certainty that this misunderstanding would soon be cleared up. Yes, a large sum had turned up in his account, but it was an inheritance, he insisted. We wanted to believe Lukasz. he was well-spoken, and clearly worried sick. A judge and jury see only the man in the dock, but we were able to observe him, trapped in a living nightmare.
Two factors helped us to trust Lukasz. First, as he kept saying, only an idiot would hide stolen loot in his own bank account — and with two degrees, Lukasz seemed no idiot. Second, he was baring his soul to the camera. Didn’t that suggest he was being framed?
And then that incriminating £12.95 receipt turned up, for a meal in a gay bar that was one of Lukasz’s favourite haunts. It proved he was using another plundered account, one this time that belonged to a dead customer. explain that away . . .
even after he was convicted, and was facing two years in prison, Lukasz kept pouring out his heart to the cameras, insisting he’d been set up: ‘I cannot believe that this has happened,’ he pleaded.
Similar documentaries have let us spy on a murder probe and a child cruelty investigation. This is psychology in the raw. The only complaint is that it’s over too quickly. Channel 5 could air all the footage from a case non-stop, over 24 hours, and we’d still be glued.
It does feel as though the BBC has been airing 50th anniversary celebrations right around the clock, with non-stop dramas and documentaries, to hail the death of the law against gay sex.
Like all TV that treats the gogglebox as a soapbox, most of it has been tiresomely earnest. Man In An Orange Shirt (BBC2) didn’t so much fall into that trap as fling itself in headfirst.
Oliver Jackson-Cohen and James McArdle played young soldiers Michael and Thomas during the 1944 Italian Campaign. Their eyes met across a crowded battlefield, and they knew at once, etc, etc.
After the war, however, Michael married a teacher (Joanna Vanderham) and started a family. The director assumed we’d feel pity for the poor fellow, parted from his true love by a cruel law.
But the law didn’t force Michael to trap his wife in a loveless marriage with a child, and humiliate her while leading a double life. he chose to do that himself. When the hero turns out to be a cowardly cad, the drama is dead . . . however earnest the intention.