SIR TREVOR MCDONALD MY VIEW

The veteran broadcaster on why television has a duty to shock viewers sometimes

Having grown up on a small island in the Caribbean, part of what drew me to television – and news and current affairs in particular – was that it’s a medium that shows the world in all its glory and all its horror. And my new series Women Behind Bars – like my last prison documentary Inside Death Row – very much falls into the latter category.

I visit two US prisons to meet women who have committed the most appalling crimes: one killed her own child, another shot someone in the face and blinded them, while a third killed six people in an arson attack. The programme is uncomfortable viewing at times – and for that I make no apology. It was also uncomfortable to make, because nothing can fully prepare you for going through those gates, experiencing the sights, sounds and smells of prison, and meeting some of these women in person, who have by their own admission done the most terrible things. To be frank, I found it hard to get their stories out of my hair at the end of the day.

The television documentary at its best can often be shocking. Who can forget the 1995 film The Dying Rooms, which looked at the plight of abandoned children in China’s state-run orphanages? Or 1983’s Simon’s War, about Welshman Simon Weston’s struggle to overcome the horrific burns he suffered in the Falklands conflict? Even David Attenborough’s wildlife documentaries have the power to shock and unsettle when they show a predator killing another of God’s creatures.

In a way, the documentary is the most honest form of television because you take a camera somewhere, point it at whoever you’re interviewing and let them tell their own story in their own words, without being judgmental. I try to show what life is really like for these women who are serving anything from ten to 20 years behind bars – because frankly, I’m the sort of person who gets claustrophobic just being in a lift.

Given the choice between watching my new series or a sitcom on another channel, some might go for the easier option. That’s understandable. If Only Fools And Horses was on the other side, I might be tempted to switch over myself!

But if you’re interested in going on a once-ina-lifetime journey inside a couple of the world’s highest-security women’s prisons, tune in. What you see and hear might unsettle and even shock you. But it will also give you – as it has given me – a greater understanding of a subject we know little about. And that, in my view, is the mark of a good documentary.

Women Behind Bars, Thursday, 9pm, ITV.