Absurd true-crime story comes with a sinister twist
The latest you-couldn’t-make-it-up true-crime series is a tale of light and dark. The FBI has been hunting a man named Nicholas Rossi. They claim that he faked his own death and moved to Scotland under the alias Arthur Knight. When Arthur Knight turns up in Imposter: The Man Who Came Back from the Dead (Channel 4), he cuts a truly ridiculous figure.
Speaking in a cod upper-class English accent, dressed either in a dressing gown and monogrammed slippers or a Churchillian three-piece suit and hat, he is confined to a wheelchair and wheezing through a mask connected to an oxygen tank, despite a court being told that there is no medical need for either accessory. He insists that he is the victim of mistaken identity. This engrossing four-part documentary sets out to prove otherwise. Each episode brings new revelations, including a bombshell in the final instalment.
The film-makers employ some quirky stylistic touches – an Ennio Morricone-esque score, brightly coloured captions introducing the contributors as The Politician, The Attorney, The Vegan Entrepreneur – as if this were Catch Me if You Can done by Quentin Tarantino. This approach reflects the absurdities of the story, which don’t end with Rossi’s
appearance. His stepfather boasts about being America’s greatest Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator and breaks into song at inopportune moments.
But the heart of this story is not remotely funny. Rossi has been extradited to face charges of rape. He is a convicted sex offender. His former wife, appearing on camera, alleged that Rossi was a domestic abuser, and she was so terrified of him that she fled the marital home in such panic that she drove through a red light and caused a head-on collision. As per the disclaimer at the end of the programme, he “continues to claim he is Arthur Knight, and denies all of Nicholas Rossi’s crimes”.
The storytelling tips backwards and forwards in time, but a clear picture builds of Rossi’s pattern of behaviour. The word “psychopath” comes up more than once.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the documentary, though, is the role of Miranda, the current – and British – wife to “Arthur Knight”. In a series of interviews, she gives him her undying support. “My husband is not American. He is not Nicholas Rossi,” she insists. “We were such a normal couple before this all happened. We love the National Trust.” Why does she appear so certain of his innocence? You will form your own conclusions.
Astatistic at the beginning of Cold Case Investigators: Solving Britain’s Sex Crimes (BBC Two) sounded so unlikely that I had to rewind to check that I hadn’t misread it. A crime unit covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire police has launched a project to review 5,400 unsolved sexual offences from the last 50 years. Yes, 5,400 cases. How on earth are they going to do it? How many officers do they have?
It was never adequately explained.
The detectives are making use of advances in forensic science. Swabs taken decades ago can be re-examined thanks to improvements in DNA testing. One of the cases involved three separate attacks, two decades ago, on teenage girls who were grabbed from behind and dragged into a field at knifepoint.
The second case featured went back even further, to 1983. Andy was 16 when he was raped by a stranger in a park. Still carrying the trauma, he can refer to it only as “the event”. When the police contacted him to say they were reopening the case, it was the first time he had spoken about what happened in nearly 40 years. One of the detectives acknowledged that reviving these cases is not without risk to the victim’s mental state: “It can go one of two ways. It can be really positive for him; or it can go the other way, because his whole world has probably just fallen apart. Maybe he was quite happily watching TV, and we’ve just knocked on the door.” Andy is now having counselling, and has the relief of seeing the perpetrator caught and convicted.
In the case of the teenage girls, we see the offender being arrested and interviewed in the second of these two episodes. It is chilling to observe him all these years later: a family man with grandchildren, a nice suburban home, a seemingly pleasant demeanour. Sometimes it’s the people you least expect.
The police and the public like this sort of documentary, which shows forces solving cases and getting results. A series following current efforts to deal with crime might not look so neat.
Imposter: The Man Who Came Back from the Dead ★★★★
Cold Case Investigators: Solving Britain’s Sex Crimes ★★★