How amateur sleuths got the cream and caught a cat killer
One of the seminal Netflix documentaries, if we can call it that, was Don’t F--k With Cats. Don’t let the jokey title and the presence of some eccentric contributors fool you. A bunch of cat-loving amateur sleuths begin an investigation into an anonymous online video of someone suffocating kittens. The story only becomes more horrific, as the perpetrator moves on from animal cruelty to human murder.
Thankfully, How to Catch a Cat Killer (ITV) was a far more measured documentary about a spate of attacks on pets in Brighton. There were little nods to the Netflix show here and there, from the dramatic music to the interviews with a group of women who launched their own hunt for the suspect. But it was much more of a standard British documentary following a police investigation.
Actually, members of the public were as important to the case as the police. Stewart Montgomery and Agathe Altwegg found their beloved cat, Hendrix, dying in 2019. Montgomery turned detective himself, following the trail of blood and combing through a neighbour’s CCTV footage. The video was clear as day: a middle-aged man petting a friendly Hendrix, then suddenly producing a knife and stabbing him.
The police officers interviewed
on camera sometimes seemed a little awkward about discussing the case, I suppose because the victims weren’t people but cats. The CCTV evidence was “fantastic”, said the detective in charge of the case, before adding hurriedly: “It wasn’t fantastic for the owners of the cat.” Under the law, cats are deemed to be property, hence why the attacker was eventually prosecuted for criminal damage.
The perpetrator was Steve Bouquet, a security guard and former Royal Navy gunner. The police charged him with 16 attacks, although they believe he could have been responsible for 40. A jury convicted him and he was sentenced to five years and three months, but he died from cancer six months in, still refusing to admit his guilt.
It was all tied up neatly as a police procedural, complete with forensic evidence. In a minor dramatic twist, it turned out that one of the amateur investigators knew Bouquet through her line of work. At the end, the Royal Veterinary College concluded that a spate of similar attacks attributed to a cat killer in Croydon were actually down to foxes; a woman from a local animal rescue group remains convinced that a human is responsible, and said she would continue to investigate. She had a fabulous name, Boudicca Rising – don’t be surprised if Netflix come knocking at her door.
Britbox is not for the young. There is little publicly available data on its subscribers, but a quick glance at the homepage reveals the most popular shows to be New Tricks, Dad’s Army and Grantchester. There is a prominently placed category called “Old-school Classics” offering Grange Hill (the Tucker Jenkins years), Thunderbirds and Captain Pugwash. So I think we can safely say that this is not a service aimed at Gen Z.
No shame in that, and Britbox does offer a very good selection of archive shows. But how then to explain Reel Britannia, a series which seems to assume that its audience knows next to nothing about Ye Olden Days?
It is a documentary series covering the history of British film from the 1960s onwards. We began with what the show packaged as surprise information: that some stars of Hollywood films were actually British. Charlie Chaplin, Vivien Leigh, Cary Grant, David Niven, Laurence Olivier. Who knew?! Later, Carry On films were mentioned, and the narrator said: “If you don’t know what a Carry On film is…” before providing an explainer.
Perhaps the programme is aimed at an American audience – Britbox is bigger in the US than it is over here. But surely even they have worked out that David Niven wasn’t a Texan?
Aside from all that, this was a reasonably entertaining canter through Sixties cinema. The show was made in association with the British Film Institute, and the BFI link meant that the talking heads were the real deal: Mike Leigh, David Puttnam, Terence Davies, Ken Loach. Each episode is devoted to a particular decade, and the first episode followed the path from British New Wave to Angry Young Men, Billy Liar to Up the Junction, by way of Tom Jones and Village of the Damned. It was essentially a stitching together of clips, informative but frustratingly brief. The sad fate of Carol White, star of Cathy Come Home, was touched upon but then we whizzed on to the next thing.
Still, it was a handy reminder of films to watch the next time you have a couple of hours to spare. I suspect a few of them might be available on Britbox.
How to Catch a Cat Killer ★★★★ Reel Britannia ★★★