Getting to the emotional heart of a shameful tragedy
Very few murders are as shameful or as tragic as that, in August 2007, of 11-year old Rhys Jones, an innocent killed on his way home from football practice by a teenager firing a gun at rival gang members across a pub car park in Croxteth, Liverpool.
Despite a wave of public sympathy, it took Merseyside detectives almost a year to bring the culprits to court due to the wall of silence encountered locally, because the gunman belonged to a violent criminal gang widely feared in the area. The Murder of Rhys Jones: Police Tapes (ITV) recounted how a lack of alternative evidence forced the police to plant listening devices in the prime suspects’ homes in the hope that they might incriminate themselves. Which they did – just not quite enough to prosecute.
Ultimately, Merseyside Police had to employ just about every trick in their investigative handbook to get a result – including offering immunity and protection to terrified key witnesses. In fact, it was that dogged pursuit of justice and desire to do right by Rhys’s parents that was the real focus of this film, rather than any particular police tapes. If ever a band of intrepid detectives deserved congratulating for going the extra mile to bring a bunch of unrepentant thugs – and in some cases their parents – to book, it was Detective Superintendent Dave Kelly and his team.
Kelly, who has since retired, was interviewed at length here by presenter Susanna Reid. He instantly brought to mind last year’s Little Boy Blue, the superb four-part ITV drama based on the case in which Stephen Graham played Kelly with memorable grit as a man consumed by a deep moral need to catch the killer in the face of often impossible-seeming odds.
That drama caught the emotional heft of the battle for justice very keenly, capable as it was of exploring the lives and culture of intimidation of all those involved in a way few documentaries can achieve. But what this film did very well was show the extraordinary intricacies of the case Kelly and his team had to so painstakingly put together before they eventually had enough evidence to convict.
Reid’s interviews with Rhys’s parents Mel and Steve were also a heart-breaking reminder of the fact that no matter how many years the convicted killer, Sean Mercer, went down for, they were the ones left serving a life sentence.
When Million Pound Menu (BBC Two) launched six weeks ago it felt like a not-half-bad idea for a new series. I’ll admit, I’ve pretty had much had my fill of TV food given that every second show on television seems to feature cookery obsessives in one form or another. But by combining cooking with setting up a new business and seeking Dragons’ Den style financial backing, Million Pound Menu at least had the advantage of using another, more interesting and aspirational, element to carry the cookery.
Or so I thought when I watched the first episode, which featured a fabulously talented young chef/ somelier duo, who won a £750,000 investment in thrilling style. Six weeks on, and the novelty has definitely worn off – partly because the quality of the talent on display has not lived up to the promise of that first episode, but mostly because the willingness of the investors to put money where their mouths are seems to have dried up.
Last night’s final episode was especially underwhelming, with two prospective food brands – one yet another variation on the posh burger, the other selling raw cookie dough – failing to rustle up a penny of investment. The latter case was a particularly unedifying spectacle, with a trio of investors getting into a state of high do(ug)h over what they thought might be a money-spinning new sweet craze, then running a mile when they realised the product was just too sweet to be addictive, even for sugar-craving teens.
As for the burger-makers: youth, talent, integrity, a mouth-watering product and a level-headed desire to take it slowly and build up their brand carefully just didn’t cut the mustard as far as these money men were concerned. It seems you need to be able to run a multinational chain of restaurants before you’re allowed to set up your first burger bar these days. What a let-down. You just don’t expect a well-made entertainment series to go out on a pathetic whimper instead of a decent bang. Like that cookie dough, it didn’t leave you wanting any more.
The Murder of Rhys Jones: Police Tapes ★★★★ Million Pound Menu ★★