A rigorous lesson in fighting the good fight
‘They’re human beings but their lives are treated as disposable. It’s appalling. We thought slavery had gone but it hasn’t. It just exists in a new form.” A criminal gang trading vulnerable children like commodities? Send for senior crown prosecutor Eran Cutliffe, fighting the good fight while her trusty guide dog Lexy dozes contentedly under her desk.
Last week’s fascinating instalment of The Prosecutors (BBC Two) followed the investigation of a gang that was using drones to deliver drugs to UK prisons. In the concluding part, Cutliffe was targeting a network responsible for child trafficking and exploitation.
Their modus operandi was to bring under-age Vietnamese girls over in shipping containers or lorries, then put them to work in high-street nail bars around the country. While they worked long hours unpaid and lived in a cramped loft, boss “Jenny” had £60,000 in cash stashed in her house.
With the help of specialist barrister Caroline Haughey and two police forces – Staffordshire and Avon & Somerset – Cutliffe began to build a complex case which would break new legal ground. This was, said the admirably impassioned Haughey, “incarceration by lack of choice. You might not be killing them but you’re as good as stealing their lives.” The usually implacable Cutliffe added: “I’d be a rubbish prosecutor if I sat around and cried all day but it does upset you.”
As the girls were interviewed, though, the legal team soon realised from similarities in their stories that the gang must have coached them in what to say. Placed in emergency foster care, they would immediately run away and return to the network, making it even harder for the authorities to help them. Could Cutliffe and co bring a case without the victims? The painstaking process took nearly two years.
Once again, the documentary focused on the unglamorous day-today grind of gathering evidence and connecting the dots. The closest we came to high-octane drama was police officers battering down a suspect’s back door – and the house turned out to be empty anyway. Instead this was about forensic detail and late nights in strip-lit offices, fuelled by quiet determination and Chinese takeaways. It was also refreshing to see an all-female team on screen without needing to even mention it.
This fine two-parter was patient, diligent and unshowy – much like the prosecutors themselves. I’d ask for more soon please but it would likely take another two years to make.
If you’re a fan of shouting, shrieking and unwise tattoos, The New Wife (Channel 5) was a treat. Otherwise you will have been wise to miss this tawdry little reality format.
Fly-on-the-wall cameras followed a hapless chap called Matt and his new partner Donna as they moved in with Matt’s ex Ashleigh for a week. Ashleigh hadn’t allowed Matt to see his daughter Isabella for six months and there was no love lost between the two women. Would spending time cooped up together allow them to confront their problems head-on and heal the wounds?
Well, of course it wouldn’t. It merely resulted in tears, tantrums, stand-up rows and storming out of rooms with a parting shot of “F--k off!”. The three protagonists kept screaming at each other to, “Show some respect.” If only this programme had done so with its viewers.
With its manufactured scenarios and manipulative set-ups, it felt invasive and exploitative. The participants threatened to quit several times but were presumably talked out of it by producers. This bear-baiting style of reality TV felt depressingly outdated, belonging in the early Noughties, the era popular for combustible series such as Wife Swap.
There was the odd ray of light – Matt’s reunion with Isabella was sweet and emotional, the two women eventually bonded and everyone signed a contract agreeing access terms – but it was too little, too late.
Just when it couldn’t get any more irritating, it was casually mentioned in the climactic scenes that Donna had several other, hitherto unseen children. Oh, and Matt had married neither woman, so the programme’s title was colloquial at best, deceptive at worst.
This episode was a one-off pilot for a full series but let’s hope that
The New Wife is permanently consigned to the reject pile. Not least because who on earth would volunteer for this televised torture?