MURDER, MYSTERY AND MY FAMILY
Available on catch-up
BBC iPlayer
For at least some of those conducting family research, the shock of finding that a forebear was involved in a major crime will be familiar. But, as this hugely successful daytime series revealed last year, by no means all convictions are safe. “There are some really staggering examples of miscarriages of justice,” says co-presenter and criminal barrister Jeremy Dein on the programme’s historical cases, some of which date back over a century. The second series began on 25 March, and Dein adds that working on the show is “allconsuming” – and no wonder. “You’re dealing with issues of people being sent to the gallows, potentially for crimes they haven’t committed, and looking at the question of whether the State has wrongly killed individuals.”
The emotional legacy of these miscarriages carries down the years. “[The series] highlights the extraordinary impact that the belief that a relative of yours has been wrongly convicted can have on an individual when you’ve never even met that person. Family after family proved to us that it can have an absolutely devastating effect, even though we might be talking about someone of two generations earlier.”
The series relies on research into the records surrounding the cases, coupled with modern forensics. While Dein effectively acts as an advocate for those who were convicted of crimes, barrister Sasha Wass looks at the cases “more objectively and impartially”, as a prosecutor would. Finally, at the end of each episode, a judge gives his verdict on what they’ve found.
Not that the stories necessarily end there. Murder, Mystery and My Family: Case Closed will revisit cases from the first series, which won an industry award for Best Daytime Programme. What’s more, a third series is already in the pipeline. If a member of your family was convicted of murder before 1975 and you think that they may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, please contact the producers via family mystery@chalkboardtv.com.