Murder by the Sea (TV Series) Brian Donald Hume: On a Wing and a Prayer (2022) User Reviews

Not too good

[johnoates · 4/10 · 16 December 2022]

This episode follows the life of double murderer Donald Hume, but is poorly researched, as it seems to use the first book on the topic, by Williams, as its only source, and fails to use primary material or even the most recently published book on the topic (a quick search on amazon should not be beyond even a novice researcher) and the author of this is not even on the show, which would have given it a little more ballast. Some of the 'expert' witnesses are inexpert and can't even get facts right, eg Hume was not the owner of 620b Finchley Road, he was a tenant, and another inexpert takes Hume's story, backed up by no other evidence, as being true. Hume was a well known liar, so such gullibility is remarkable. The presenter states as a fact that Mrs Hume knew nothing of the murder of Setty but given that she was almost certainly in the flat at the time and let Setty in, this seems an odd judgement. Likewise her statement that the police thought Hume was innocent is ludicrous - if so, why did they arrest him? Nor was Hume's body found in the grounds of his old school but that of a hotel, The Copper Beeches. Given that this is meant to be crime fact, I thought it rather poor, but I suppose it does give the basic story of a now little known murderer (compared to say Haigh and Christie), though it was not a murder by the sea unless anyone thinks the Finchley suburb of north London is by the sea. Pretty unimpressive, all in all, but unfortunately there is no good programme on the case out there. By the way, the synopsis states the body was dumped over the marshes - it wasn't, it was dumped out to sea but the tides brought it to said marshes.