Unforgotten 3

Unforgotten 3 An outline for a six part serial by Chris Lang Series three of ‘Unforgotten’ will once again explore the fallout from, and the investigation into, an historic murder. It will continue to mine some of the themes of series one and two, but the primary theme of this series, will be the increasingly public nature of serious criminal investigation. So this is a story about public opprobrium and shaming, about trial by twitter, facebook and blog. It is about societal rage and self righteousness, and about why we are now so eager to accuse and scream ‘guilty’, ever less concerned with such inconveniences as evidence and due process. Reflecting events like the murder of Jo Cox, the trial-less but very public excoriation of Greville Janner and Leon Brittan, and the media frenzy surrounding anyone connected to high profile murder cases, ‘Unforgotten 3’ asks uncomfortable questions about the threat to justice that comes with the increasingly transparent system we now demand. On a human level, it will delve deeper into the notion of what sins are forgivable – not so much by others, but by ourselves. We’re all fallible, we’ve all done things of which we may be ashamed, but which of those should we forgive ourselves for, which should we not, and how do we make the distinction? So although the story will once again spin off from the discovery of an historical murder victim, there are some key differences in series three. Firstly, all of our key suspects are close friends. Four men who met as bright young 11 year olds, at a south London grammar in 1968. (By using this fixed starting point, our story will reference documentaries like ‘7 Up’, and examine how the sixties experiment of social mobility played out over the decades). So whatever bonds were forged in those first few febrile years of early adolescence, as each tried to define their place in the world with the help of friendship, girls, and alcohol, they were extraordinary enough to have survived till today. Survived moving away, failed marriages, career successes and numerous kids, this self styled ‘gang of four’ have been mates through thick and thin, and indeed as we join them in episode one, it is at the first sixtieth birthday party (Tim’s) and is a big moment for them all. But storm clouds are gathering, and as the investigation starts to peel back the layers of each of our antagonists’ lives, after initially offering the support they have always given to each other, they will then start to re-evaluate, retreat, and finally turn on one another, as everything they thought they knew about their old friends, is thrown into doubt. Secondly, we will chart the journey of four characters who are clearly not suspects. The older sister of the victim (now a 34 year old woman) who (understandably) has profound issues associated with the tragedy seventeen years ago. A suspect in the original investigation, who was arrested but ultimately not charged, and whose life was ruined as a result of the attention (we will be referencing characters like Colin Stagg and Robert Murat in this strand). A woman not connected to the murder in any other way but through her public engagement with the case through social media. The original investigating officer. And thirdly Cassie will face the greatest test of her career when, as a direct result of information she inadvertently allows to be made public, one of the suspects is murdered by a member of the public, in the ultimate articulation of righteous societal anger. This murder will threaten the successful investigation of the case (made to look like a guilt induced suicide, it pulls focus away from the other suspects) and will also have a profound impact on Cassie. The deep sense of personal responsibility she feels for the murder, will come at a time of great emotional instability for her, following the departure of her father to live with his new wife, and her sons both doing a year in America for their degrees. On top of these events, the nature of the investigation also dramatically escalates, as new information is discovered at the end of episode five, which takes the case into uncharted and very dark waters in the final episode. The combined toll these factors take on Cassie will lead her to consider her position and her future. In the end this is a dilemma that tragically she will never have to resolve, as she is stabbed trying to arrest the member of the public who murdered the suspect. Her life hangs in the balance as the story draws to a close, and it is very possible that she will die. ----------- On Jan 3rd 2000 in the picturesque village of Wisborough in the New Forest, 15 year Hayley Reid disappeared somewhere between the pub she had just finished her evening shift as a waitress in, and her family home, half a mile down a dark country road. The original investigation failed to find her, her body, or who might have been responsible for her disappearance, but did manage to cause immense pain to her family and community in the course of a profoundly troubled few months. Hayley was a fairly normal fifteen year old, but perhaps more sexually experienced than most (she had had at least three partners, one of whom was 25) and the police struggled to know quite what they were dealing with or how to interpret the possible narrative, resulting in a serious mistake, when they initially suggested she had probably run off to London with a man she had met in the summer. Three years after she went missing, the twenty strong investigation team was scaled down to a core team of three officers. Five years later this core team was also stood down. And then, on a cold November morning nearly seventeen years later, during routine maintenance works to a section of the M1 in Finchley, remains that are fairly quickly identified as Hayley’s (she had an unusual metal plate in her tibia from a horse riding accident) are found buried on the central grass reservation between the two carriage ways. Given her experience in similar cases, the investigation is assigned to Cassie Stuart. The body is found with no clothes and no evidence linking it to anything, but it is clearly significant that it was found in London, and after a number of false starts (the idea that Hayley ran away is re- examined for a while) it is Cassie who first posits the theory that she was brought to London already dead. Which suggests the murderer possibly lived in London. So this in turn leads them to look at second homes and holiday lets in and around Wisborough, and then when this theory is examined in conjunction with certain evidence from the original investigation, focus will turn to one particular house. ‘The Spinney’, a seven bedroom former rectory, four miles from Wisborough, which it now transpires was rented for one week from December 29th 1999, to 5th Jan 2000, by a group of old friends and their families (at that time, all in their early forties) to celebrate the Millennium. Seventeen years later, Cassie Stuart and her team start to explore the possibility that one of them was responsible for the death of Hayley Reid. So who are our antagonists? Tim Wells (59) is a GP in the small West Sussex market town of Petworth, and is about to turn 60 (indeed the first time we meet him and the other three, will be at a special dinner to celebrate his birthday). After leaving school in 1975, seven years of med school saw him qualify as a doctor in the early eighties. A patient and deeply caring man, with a laconic wit, he has been married for twelve years to his second wife, Daisy (56) who runs a local antique shop, and both are involved and much loved members of the local community. He has two grown up children (a son and daughter, both now in their late twenties) with his first wife, Jennifer, who he divorced in 2004, and who he and (to a lesser degree) his kids, are estranged from. The true cause of this estrangement (in the kids’ minds their mum simply absented herself) will be painfully revealed over the course of the series, with many claim and counter claim, as his children struggle to know who to believe. Jennifer, his wife at the time of the millennium break, and now living a reclusive life in the wilds of Wales, is indisputably a volatile and irrational woman, but she claims it was her ex that caused her to become that person. A man who demeaned, controlled, and physically abused her for years. The kids, who were both at boarding school, never saw anything of the sort, nor did any of his friends have any sense of him being a violent man, but they do acknowledge he can be controlling, and a man who possibly subtly controls Daisy even now. And when conclusive proof is found of his historic domestic violence, even as a hitherto unknown connection is made all those years ago to Hayley Reid (he is identified as the man seen talking to her on New Year’s day on a local beach) questions are asked about what might have transpired between this girl and the youthful looking Timothy Wells over the course of that week away. And when in interview, Jennifer reveals she left (by train) a day early, to get the kids back to school on time, meaning Tim had the car to himself, alarm bells start seriously ringing, and the question his loving wife, his kids and the police must ask, is could his unpleasant but not extraordinary character flaws, make him a murderer.

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