Charmed, controlled, murdered ... chilling fate of a teenage beauty

COMING off the back of a Home Office campaign to r aise awareness about teenage violence, last night’s Murdered By My Boyfriend (BBC3) was a timely piece of television.

Names had been changed but this drama was based on real events. The story had been pieced together with the help of the victim’s friends and family.

At the start we saw Ashley as a bright, beautiful 17-year-old college student. Popular, ambitious and with a dream of opening her own beauty parlour. Four years later, she died in a frenzy of punches and kicks meted out by her jealous boyfriend reece and witnessed by their threeyear-old daughter Jasmine.

Ashley met the older, good-looking reece at a party when he came across as polite and charmingly oldfashioned in his desire to ‘look after’ her. Of course, what he actually meant was he wanted to control her, something he did with increasing menace over the next four years.

After just three months together Ashley discovered she was expecting and was persuaded, against her will, to have the baby. It was while she was heavily pregnant that reece first assaulted her. About to give birth and dependent on him for money, the timing was no coincidence. He knew she was in no position to walk away.

The programme then jumped to three years later where Ashley’s bruised body was testament to the regular abuse she suffered. reece also controlled her finances, monitored her Facebook activity and demanded she text him pictures throughout the day to prove she was where she claimed to be.

It wasn’t until reece attacked her i n the clothes shop where she worked and others witnessed his behaviour t hat Ashley was persuaded to leave him. The most upsetting thing about watching was knowing she would eventually succumb to his endless phone calls and harassment — and go back.

In the space of four years Ashley was transformed from a pretty, vibrant teen into a dowdy, timid woman — something actress Georgina Campbell captured perfectly.

Credit must go to royce Pierreson f or so skilfully portraying the psychotic reece — who eventually battered his partner to death with an ironing board. It was harrowing, powerful viewing.

Just as troubling was Police Under Pressure (BBC2), only this time it was far less easy to take sides.

In one corner were South Yorkshire Police, struggling to keep control of an area with some of the highest crime rates in the country amid budget cuts.

In the other corner were the residents at the end of their tether with the anti-social behaviour that plagued their neighbourhoods. Fi l med last s ummer, t he programme dealt with t he simmering tension in the Page Hall area of Sheffield where 700 roma families had moved in.

Their habit of congregating on street corners and chatting into the early hours was disturbing and intimidating the locals.

However, since they weren’t breaking the l aw, there was nothing the police could do. It was only when complaints reached crisis point that the decision was taken to issue a Section 30 order, giving the police special powers to arrest and impose curfews.

In another part of the city a Section 30 order put in place to keep feral teens off the streets had ended and — predictably — the problem returned. I found myself nodding with agreement when one agitated resident said: ‘All we get is high police visibility but no action. What’s the point?’

The truth was the force did seem to spend an awful lot of its time holding meetings about what to do rather than taking the swift action the law-abiding part of the community demanded.

With cuts of £42 million set to hit South Yorkshire Police over the next four years, the problems are going to get worse and the programme did well to capture the frustrations on both sides and document the impossible job today’s police face.

Which begged the question: If Section 30 orders work so well, way aren’t they a permanent way of enforcing law and order?

Christopher Stevens is away.