Mon, Oct 31, 2016
Investigative crime reporter Christoph Spinetti interviews elderly Barbara Wilcox, who has reported Polly Worcester from next door missing. The last person Polly spoke to, on the phone, was a pizza delivery boy, with whom she argued. Spinetti talks to crime expert Andrew Reynolds, who tells him that most murderers are young white men in their twenties. On this evidence alone 28-year old Tom Jessop is arrested and charged with Polly's murder.
Mon, Oct 31, 2016
As Andrew Reynolds demonstrates that the slightest hint of guilt can denounce an innocent and bring about trial by newspapers the press hound Tom's parents. In another interview with Spinetti they explain how, as a child, Tom went to stroke a cat but it ran off, as a result of which he is branded as a cat perv in the tabloids, which does not help his case in any way.
Mon, Oct 31, 2016
Tom's parents put their house on the market to pay hot shot lawyer Jessica Arkwright to defend Tom. At Spinetti's suggestion in order to gain sympathy for themselves they light a candle in Polly's memory but sadly this causes their house to burn down and, with no fee forthcoming, Jessica withdraws from the case, to be replaced by the bumbling Simon Schinwald.
Mon, Oct 31, 2016
Spinetti uses a hidden camera to film Tom Jessop's trial, which initially does not go well for him. However Schinwald discovers that, at the exact time that Polly went missing, Tom was playing a computer game and this is played to the court to prove the lad's innocence. Unfortunately it is a very violent game in which Tom is heard to be killing somebody, thus ensuring a guilty verdict.
Mon, Oct 31, 2016
Spinetti visits a depressed Tom in prison and, in order to cheer him up, goes the rounds of the other convicts, asking them to be Tom's friends. As the docudrama ends Spinetti stands in front of Polly's house, making his own observations on the case but behind him something happens that could not only win Tom Jessop his freedom but prove how misguided investigative crime shows can be - often resulting in miscarriages of justice.