The Wimbledon Kidnapping

I'm just old enough to remember the great furore regarding this infamous criminal case in Britain as it happened. For days, it seemed, after its occurrence, the disappearance of Mrs Muriel McKay in London in late 1969 was never off the front pages. Clearly taken in error, when the real target was later believed to be her husband's boss, Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch's first wife, Fleet Street had a field day with their coverage of the surrounding events. Eventually, two brothers of West Indian origin were convicted of kidnap and murder and sentenced to lengthy prison terms as a result, the older of the two, implicated as the more controlling one, indeed died in prison, while the younger one didn't see the light of day for 20 years and was deported back to the Caribbean immediately he was freed.

Using contemporary TV coverage, press articles of the time and latter-day interviews with some of the principal parties in the case, most notably, the still alive younger brother now out to clear his name and some of the children of the missing-presumed-dead Mrs McKay, the case was noteworthy for being the first reported kidnapping within these shores as well as seeing both the defendants convicted without a dead body ever being found.

There was however considerable physical and circumstantial evidence against certainly the older brother, Arthur Hosein, including his fingerprints at the crime scene, while there appeared to be less to incriminate the much younger brother Nadim. There was even an interesting later revelation that a third brother in the family, the oldest sibling Adam, who significantly only died earlier this year, might also have been involved, but had been smart enough to prepare a solid alibi over his movements on the night of the crime.

The younger Hosein tries to plead his innocence on camera but it's clear that the daughters of Mrs McKay disbelieve him. Personally I found it hard to believe he knew nothing of his brother's actions, especially as he lived with him at the time, along with some apparent evidence which appeared to involve him in both the planning of the crime and in the succeeding ransom demands. Now at an advanced age, when he says words to the effect at the beginning that he wishes to say his piece and clear his conscience, the hope for the McKay family must have been that he was going to at last reveal what actually happened the night their mother was abducted and perhaps offer them closure by revealing the true fate of Mrs McKay and where her remains had been deposited - the then highlighted press rumour that her body had been fed to the pigs on the Hosein farm was revealed as arising from a speculative, throwaway remark by a journalist.

I've seen better assembled and more pointed documentaries of this type even as I accept that it was probably better to leave things open to individual interpretation by the viewer in the absence of any dramatic new evidence coming to light. Unsurprisingly, for these times, a possibly revisionist accusation of racism against the the two brothers was brought to the surface although I found the claims of police brutality, beating up the Hoseins during their interrogations, a bit easier to believe, I must say.

Nevertheless, I still found many aspects of the programme of interest despite its rather workmanlike assembly. The now broken and damaged extant younger brother looks as if he's not long for this world and with the prior deaths of his two other brothers, it looks as if he will be the last Hosein to go to his grave leaving the surviving McKay family bereft of their last best hope of discovering their mother's body, to finally lay her to rest.

I really don't like watching crime series or documentaries where at the end you're left feeling like basically nothing was answered. I guess this is meant to leave us feeling how the family feels. This seemed to be a final attempt by the family to find answers.

It was either poor editing or the program makers had a different agenda to other productions of this time which are ubiquitous Starting off with the actual kidnapping would have been better to have included the probability that it was a case of mistaken identity.

After setting that scene there lengthy diatribe about immigration and racism in the UK.

We here a lot from Nizamodeen Hosein in the first half of the overly long production without it being explained as to his involvement. It did not flow at all.

With so much emphasise being placed on a miscarriage of justice and the police having made up their mind very early on that they had their men, it is ironic that since this was made in 2021 there is a chapter missing (2021-2024). Read about it on Wikipedia.

This could have been a tense, gripping hour-long doco but it's something like 3 hours -- at least it felt that way. No narrator to set the scene. No narrator to guide you through the story but just random scenes with no or little connection to anything before. Just WAY TOO LONG! I If you don't know the case, google it on Wikipedia and save yourself the agony.

It's a simple story, 2 or 3 immigrant brothers with a heavy accent try to kidnap Rupert Murdoch's wife. But as he is away he loans his car to a man running the papers/paper for him. The kidnappers instead go into this wrong house and kidnap a the wrong White woman.

Kidnapping is not regular at that time so the police has to make up a plan as they go along. They put money in suitcases where the kidnappers want it and then track them. They know the woman is dead, that much becomes clear very fast, but they still play along to catch the kidnappers. The kidnappers drive around the suitcase and reveal their number plate. The police track down a farm where they live. Hundreds of officers search the farm, but no trace of her is found. The older brother left fingerprints in the house where they kidnapped her from so it's quite simple to convict them even though they claim they are innocent. The 3rd brother has an alibi and is not charged.

So it's a simple story. The documentary tries to make it "deeper" by creating a culture war story. Even before revealing anything about the case the doc builds a story about a super racist UK where the cops, media, and public are eager to hunt down foreigners no matter if they are innocent or not. They interview a lot of people who attack the cops and media for being racist. Later they reinvestigate the case to show how these poor immigrants were actually, maybe, innocent and that the racist system was unfair. The older brother, Arthur, is seen as kinda guilty as his fingerprints were at the crime scene and he was a mean character. So I'm not sure what they point is exactly? UK is racist so we don't know who did it, but Arthur still likely did it? They for example reinvestigate the fingerprints, but don't talk about it. They claim the voice of the kidnapper may be from another person, and not the younger brother, because they reinterview the 1969 kidnapper in 2021 and he sounds different. Well, they don't really tell us why they think he sounds different. The accent is very unique and it's quite clear it's the same exact accent. It may have been his brother's voice instead? At any rate I don't understand what they are even reinvestigating here. They are looking at the handwriting on a document a brother filled out, but then don't clearly explain what the document even is. Anyhow, the younger brother admitted to the death in 2021. The guy who they make out to be innocent here now admits to the kidnapping. Did the confession happen right after this 2021 doc was made? It's just stupid all around. The doc is a bunch of confusing culture war stories while you barely understand the actual evidence.

The doc just jumps from point to point in a hectic matter without really giving us all evidence. And it's very hard to track the story because they don't care about it. They have an agenda and focus on it from the get go trying to muddy the case. It would be fine if they presented all the evidence first and THEN tried to build an alternative theory. But that's not their goal.