This case had been in the back of my mind for many years: a partially-disabled son who is taken on a walk of over two miles on a winter's day in 1992 and vanishes seemingly into thin air, echoes of Sheila Bowler, Lee Irving, Dylan Freeman: no vulnerable human being is safe it seems in the image-driven high pressure society we find ourselves in today.
Mark Williams-Thomas may have wished to portray Charles and Doris Clark sympathetically, though his documentary raises more questions than it answers: who could vouch for both parents' movements on Monday 28 December 1992, why were no friends of Steven interviewed and what was everyday life really like in the Clark household? The suspicion remains that Steven was disposed of because (allegedly) he had become a financial burden to the Clarks and they wished to make their daughter sole beneficiary of their estates. The body could have been disposed of in the adjacent North York Moors with relative ease and would police have consumed so many man hours when resources at that time were particularly stretched?
Of course the couple could be entirely innocent: they come across as plausible, a brick wall of emotion in many ways, but somehow I was left feeling uncomfortable and wished the programme had never been made.
https://www.itv.com/hub/accused-of-murdering-our-son-the-steven-clark-story/10a1073a0001
