A young White prostitute is murdered in Tiger Bay Cardiff. The police drag in her boyfriend, who they assume is her pimp, and plenty other criminal elements mostly from mix-race families. They get the boyfriend to confess to the murder even after knowing that the only volunteered evidence is someone spotting a White man at the crime scene.
But after interviewing and pressuring the boyfriend for hours he finally confesses. Weirdly his lawyer was in the room. And other low IQ people also claim they witnessed everything. A few years down the line they are exonerated as the interrogation tapes are listened to in an appeals court and it's clear the confession was forced. The cops still claim these 5 men killed her. But the police department does invite 2 outsiders to look over the case and with DNA evidence now being a thing they find out that they had already arrested a boy with matching DNA. He was not born at the time of the murder, but his uncle was. The case is closed. The fake witnesses go to prison for up to 18 months. And the cops are put on trial, but the judge throws out the case as some documents are missing. They are found 2 weeks later. Someone had misplaced them and someone else just claimed someone had shredded them - which proved to be false.
The case is not well-known outside UK. Largely because the cases were overturned after the people had been in prison for 4 years. So it's long, but not extremely unfair as some other similar cases with 13+ years in prison. Similarly the boyfriend did confess and one witness did claim she took part in the murder and saw everything. So while the police did force all of this to happen for the jury and judges it did look like a strong enough case. It's 3 witnesses and a full confession. Even to me, now knowing everything, it looks weird so many people claimed they saw these men murder a woman. But they are 100% innocent.
I listened to the BBC podcast before listening to this. I think the BBC podcast is better. The podcast is weird and with a ton of pointless sound effects, but it at least has a decent amount of info. This 3 hour documentary basically skips most significant details. We basically don't hear anything about the actual killer or how he was captured. Just a few sentences. They look past all the witnesses here and don't even show their photos making it look like a fake case. We also don't hear much about life in Tiger Bay or anything about prison conditions. It's nice to see some visual elements, but it's not really enough I feel. It also is a dirt cheap documentary. No 3D recreation or any recreation of any kind really. Just interviews alone with a narrator mostly set in dull rooms. I still think it's an engaging watch for sure. But I can't recommend this over other sources. The BBC podcast is completely free and more engaging and deep so I would recommend that over this for sure. Basically, it's good. But the podcast is just better so in comparison it's not quite ideal.
But after interviewing and pressuring the boyfriend for hours he finally confesses. Weirdly his lawyer was in the room. And other low IQ people also claim they witnessed everything. A few years down the line they are exonerated as the interrogation tapes are listened to in an appeals court and it's clear the confession was forced. The cops still claim these 5 men killed her. But the police department does invite 2 outsiders to look over the case and with DNA evidence now being a thing they find out that they had already arrested a boy with matching DNA. He was not born at the time of the murder, but his uncle was. The case is closed. The fake witnesses go to prison for up to 18 months. And the cops are put on trial, but the judge throws out the case as some documents are missing. They are found 2 weeks later. Someone had misplaced them and someone else just claimed someone had shredded them - which proved to be false.
The case is not well-known outside UK. Largely because the cases were overturned after the people had been in prison for 4 years. So it's long, but not extremely unfair as some other similar cases with 13+ years in prison. Similarly the boyfriend did confess and one witness did claim she took part in the murder and saw everything. So while the police did force all of this to happen for the jury and judges it did look like a strong enough case. It's 3 witnesses and a full confession. Even to me, now knowing everything, it looks weird so many people claimed they saw these men murder a woman. But they are 100% innocent.
I listened to the BBC podcast before listening to this. I think the BBC podcast is better. The podcast is weird and with a ton of pointless sound effects, but it at least has a decent amount of info. This 3 hour documentary basically skips most significant details. We basically don't hear anything about the actual killer or how he was captured. Just a few sentences. They look past all the witnesses here and don't even show their photos making it look like a fake case. We also don't hear much about life in Tiger Bay or anything about prison conditions. It's nice to see some visual elements, but it's not really enough I feel. It also is a dirt cheap documentary. No 3D recreation or any recreation of any kind really. Just interviews alone with a narrator mostly set in dull rooms. I still think it's an engaging watch for sure. But I can't recommend this over other sources. The BBC podcast is completely free and more engaging and deep so I would recommend that over this for sure. Basically, it's good. But the podcast is just better so in comparison it's not quite ideal.