PICK OF THE DAY

Maxine

Channel 5, 9pm, Monday to Wednesday,

Few crimes have so horrified Britain as the murder 20 years ago of ten-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, as recounted in this hard-hitting drama.

Both victims were pupils at the school where Maxine Carr (Jemma Carlton, right) was a teaching assistant; as the fiancee of their killer Ian Huntley (Scott Reid, Line Of Duty), she was eventually convicted of providing a false alibi for him.

The story begins as Carr returns from a weekend away, during which the girls have disappeared, and as the search goes on she becomes increasingly complicit in the evil of Huntley’s crimes. A compelling, if deeply disturbing, examination of the peculiar hold Huntley had over Carr is grounded in both Carlton’s committed performance and a well-crafted script that wisely avoids gratuitous shock moments.

★★★★☆