A moving story about the importance of family
Mainly thanks to the civil war that raged there, Sri Lanka became home to a booming baby trade during the Eighties. More than 11,000 people born on the Asian island have been adopted overseas, many growing up with little knowledge of what they left behind.
Searching for Mum: Sri Lanka (BBC Two) followed two women adopted as babies as they tried to track down their birth families – seeking not just biological relatives but their own lost identities. Would either find the answers they longed for?
Rebecca Pararajasingam, 38, from Surrey learned that she was adopted aged nine, finding the papers by accident in an airing cupboard. The discovery ruined her childhood and relationship with her adoptive parents. She was now back on the island for her third search, promising that it was her last. Husband Anton, who accompanied her, had motor neurone disease and was struggling to keep up.
The couple made media appearances, handed out leaflets and investigated the capital Colombo’s government ministries for clues. They eventually followed a promising lead to a shanty town but, in a gut-punch twist, the DNA didn’t match. Rebecca immediately deleted all the photos that she’d taken and insisted: “We start again. This isn’t it.” The search which had consumed and defined her remained unsuccessful. It was heartbreaking.
More philosophical and less brittle, 27-year-old Ria Sloan from Inverness was returning for the first time. Her journey took her to the heart of the adoption industry, where corruption was rife and paperwork frequently falsified, while agencies and lawyers made millions from the fees they charged.
Yet what Ria discovered, in a village not marked on any maps, was transformative. She was reunited not just with her birth mother but taken to the bosom of an entire extended family. You could virtually see Ria’s rejection issues and rootlessness being lifted off her shoulders. A lip-wobblingly happy ending, in stark contrast to Rebecca’s.
This film touched on how the notions of family that we take for granted can become confused when you have little idea who brought you into the world or why they gave you away. BBC Two’s
Big British Asian Summer season, of which this was part, is turning out to be full of pleasant surprises.
With its immersive access and painstaking procedural focus, The Detectives has been the standout home-grown true crime strand of recent years (apologies, 24 Hours in Police Custody). The latest instalment, The Detectives: The Farmhouse Robbery (ITV), followed Lancashire Police’s major investigation team on two violent cases, each disturbing in their own way.
First came an armed robbery at a farmhouse. A gang shot their way into a family home, tied up the owner, then stole seven hunting rifles and £5,000. Detective Inspector Jo Keay, a phlegmatic flame-haired cop who wouldn’t look amiss in a police drama, soon found a suspect. Blood found at the scene was a DNA match to criminal David Jolley, just out of prison.
This charmer hid inside his hoodie while holding a middle finger aloft to cameras but Jolley was bang to rights, sentenced to life with a minimum of six and a half years. His accomplices, however, remained at large.
Meanwhile, officers in Blackpool unpicked the truth after a baby received “catastrophic head injuries” during a shocking burst of violence. They were hampered by the child’s mother giving different versions of events, while the father went Awol.
The manhunt launched by Detective Superintendent Andy Murphy – “We’re acting on behalf of the helpless child,” he said with grim determination – had a stroke of luck. Arresting Tomasz Raszkiewicz for a drug offence, they realised he matched the description of the baby’s father.
After untangling the key players’ impenetrable accounts, it seemed Raszkiewicz had pushed his partner while she had their son in her arms. He got three years for assault and has now been deported. The child will never fully recover. Most chillingly, Raszkiewicz showed no remorse.
Compelling viewing, albeit bleak. Netflix true-crime series, such as Making a Murderer and The Staircase, might get fawning reviews but they’re ponderous by comparison. The Detectives grips by portraying the everyday grit of police work.
Searching for Mum: Sri Lanka The Detectives: The Farmhouse Robbery