Edinburgh TV Festival: ITV has announced a new season of documentary films under the ‘Crime & Punishment’ banner for the autumn.
Well-known talent including Gordon Ramsay, Ross Kemp, Susanna Reid, Sir Trevor McDonald and Piers Morgan will front the films which offer insight into the criminal mind, the international cocaine trade, police investigations and how we punish offenders in Britain today.
The run of films will be shown in consecutive weeks this autumn.
The Crime & Punishment season is commissioned for ITV by Sue Murphy, Head of Factual Entertainment and Jo Clinton-Davis, Controller of Factual.
Films commissioned in the run include:
AN HOUR TO CATCH A KILLER
Produced by Potato 1X60
Presented by Sir Trevor McDonald, with innovative access to the Northumbria homicide team, An Hour To Catch A Killer takes viewers to the heart of the all-important window of time that can make or break a murder investigation – the ‘Golden Hour’. This principle, outlined in British Police’s Murder Investigation Manual, describes how the decisions detectives make during that first hour impact on whether or not they catch the killer.
This ‘moving rig’ filming allows unrestricted access to the heart of the investigation, taking viewers inside the crime scene where camera crew can’t ordinarily go because their presence would contaminate evidence.
Presented by Sir Trevor McDonald
Filmed and Directed by John Holdsworth
Executive Producers: Ed Taylor, Michael Kelpie
GORDON ON COCAINE [WT]
Produced by Studio Ramsay 2×60
This two-part film shows Gordon Ramsay exposing how behind the powder many Brits consume as part of a night out lies a trail of criminality, cruelty and death driving its global trade. He travels to South and Central America, and joins the UK police as they catch dealers and users here.
Cocaine use in Ramsay’s own business, the restaurant trade. He’s witnessed it wreck the careers of colleagues and tragically he lost his close friend and chef protégé to a cocaine overdose in 2003.
ROSS KEMP IN JAIL – INSIDE BARLINNIE
Produced by STV Productions– 1×60
With unprecedented access, Ross Kemp immerses himself in prison life at the sharp end in HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow, the iconic prison that has served the city for almost 150 years.
Shot over seven days with Ross, the film sees him meeting both prisoners and prison officers to taste what it’s like to serve time and work inside walls which have a dark past, as he discovers stories of the executions and the violent siege which have earned the jail its tough reputation.
SERIAL KILLER WITH PIERS MORGAN
Produced by Plum Pictures – 1×60
Piers Morgan enters Florida’s maximum security Blackwater Prison to interview one of America’s most vicious and cunning killers, Mark Reibe. He has confessed to the abduction and murder of thirteen young women but then suddenly withdrew his confession. Reibe is serving life for the murder of one woman Donna Callaghan, but police are convinced he killed many more. In a tense head-to-head, Reibe tries to manipulate Piers with his lies as he is challenged to finally tell the truth.
THE MURDER OF BECKY WATTS – INSIDE THE INVESTIGATION
Produced by The Garden Productions 1×60
When 16 year old Becky Watts went missing in 2015, it sparked a major police investigation and dominated headlines nationwide. Everyone was desperate to find the missing teenager. But only two people knew where she was – Becky’s stepbrother Nathan, and his girlfriend Shauna. F
eaturing Becky’s family telling presenter Susanna Reid about the impact of this appalling crime, this new film has unprecedented access to never before seen footage recorded by the police at the heart of the investigation, revealing for the first time the g inner workings of the case and the strategy and skill the detectives used to catch Becky’s killers.
Staff Reporter
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