I gave in and watched the series on the NowTV player after taking advantage of their free trial offer.
It's not a documentary series in the true sense. It's more like a compilation of interviews and montages with voiceovers. Some of the photographs and interviews are interesting because I haven't seen them before, but there's little substance to it in that it's fairly superficial and doesn't go into much detail, and I was pretty bored by the end of it. I think it was all a bit confused and disjointed. The four episodes overall lack a clear narrative or focus and there was no analytical element.
For me, the gold standard for this genre are the World in Action documentaries on the Birmingham Six:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyo50NHuRq4Watch that example and be amazed, and then consider: Would such a documentary be made today? They know what they want to say. They say it. They don't get bogged down in issues that aren't strictly relevant, such as the feelings of relatives, etc., or the opinions of frivolous book authors, or the impressions of peripheral figures (James Richards? Barbara Wilson? Are they crucial witnesses?), or the life and times of TV reporters, or the fatuous tautologies of police officers ("I knew he was guilty. I don't know what his supporters are playing at", etc., etc., etc.).
Points that stood out (in no particular order):
(i). David Boutflour is a very emotional man. Nobody else in any documentary on this case I have seen was crying, just him. I have not seen Colin Caffell cry like that.
(ii). Mr Boutflour claims that Nevill and June were like second parents to him and he used to stay at The White House often during his teens.
(iii). Mr Boutflour again tells us that the silencer was 'sticky' and he saw the grey hair on it. It must be that Jeremy didn't notice this stickiness or the grey hair when he put that same silencer away in the gun cupboard.
(iv). Colin Caffell does not appear. Nor does Ann Eaton.
(v). Anthony Arlidge, prosecution counsel at the trial, criticises the judge's summing-up, as does a barrister unconnected with the case who was asked to give his 'objective' view on the transcript.
(vi). In the third episode, a former News of the World reporter clearly admits that Julie Mugford was promised payment before the end of the trial.
(vii). An admission from Julie Mugford that I had forgotten came up again, which is that she claimed to Essex Police that she did supply sedatives or sleeping pills to Jeremy for the purpose of an abortive murder plot.
(viii). Unflattering speculation is advanced about Julie's motives for coming forward.
(ix). James Richards, responsible for perhaps the most ridiculously irrelevant evidence ever given in an English murder trial, is described as a 'friend' of Julie Mugford and defends her zealously.
(x). Likewise Barbara Wilson, whose evidence at trial seemed pointless to me, makes another appearance. She now claims that Nevill knew Jeremy had robbed the caravan site office. Yet Nevill did not change his will. Why? I thought there was a murder plot and Nevill, June, Julie, Colin, Robert, David, Peter, Ann, Karen, Patricia, and every Phillip, Jack and Maureen between there and Chelmsford knew of it?
(xi). No mention is made of DCI Taff Jones or DS Stan Jones.
(xii). Dr Vanezis does not appear.
(xiii). Mike Ainsley is not asked why he retained evidence in his own home, if he did so. Isn't it a strange thing for a police officer to take evidence home with him, then destroy that evidence?
(xiv). For the first time, Malcolm Fletcher and Michael West appear. Their interviews are quite interesting, to be fair.
(xv). Geoffrey Rivlin does not appear, nor does Paul Terzeon.
(xvi). Mark Williams-Thomas is given a soap box and could have gone into some detail about the evidence he came up with, but in keeping with the documentary's lack of focus, he is fairly superficial but does come across well.
(xvii). Chris Bews now says he saw movement at the window, then realised it was moon light. I think that must be the third or fourth version of that part of the incident that he has given. At this rate, he'll be telling us in the next documentary that it was Saxby who saw something, as he's the only person present who it hasn't yet been blamed on.
(xviii). For the first time, we hear parts of Jeremy's prison interview with the journalist in 2010.
The whole thing came across to me as a damage limitation exercise, perhaps intended to blunt the impact of new revelations to come (which may be things that are not revelations to us on this Forum, but would be to the public).
It may also be that the lack of narrative rigour is an effort at confusing ordinary viewers of average intelligence, who will come away without a clear sense of what are the issues in the case and will be inclined to just forget about it all.
