Helen Archer | On 17, Aug 2021

Colin Stagg is an innocent man. It’s important to begin this review with this statement, as, if you were to watch the first three episodes of Channel 4’s Deceit, you’d be well within your rights to assume he was guilty, and that the police who targeted him using a honeytrap operation had every reason to do so. Written by Emilia di Girolamo, and directed Niall MacCormick, this highly anticipated true crime dramatisation focuses on the deeply flawed investigation into the murder of 23-year-old Rachel Nickell, who, in 1992, was stabbed 49 times before being sexually assaulted in broad daylight on Wimbledon Common. The attack took place in front of her two-year-old son, who was reportedly found next to his mother’s lifeless body crying ‘wake up, mummy’.

It was a horrifying crime, one that, understandably, resulted in a community paralysed by fear, as police flailed around in the dark and failed to make any arrests. Deceit begins not with the murder – indeed, Nickell is barely mentioned throughout – but with a successful undercover drugs operation, which introduces us to “Sadie Byrne” (Niamh Algar), the pseudonym by which she is known here, as the former copper’s real identity continues to be protected by law.

The drama is firmly focused on the police, and Sadie is introduced to us as brave and ambitious, thrilled to be part of a large investigation when she is approached by her senior, DI Keith Pedder (Harry Treadaway). She is quickly taken under the wing of psychologist Paul Britton (Eddie Marsan) to develop a backstory for her undercover character of “Lizzie James”, and alters both her appearance and her personality in an effort to appeal to Stagg (Sion Daniel Young). Introducing herself first through flirtatious letters, she begins communicating with Stagg via telephone, before meeting in person to entice him into a romantic relationship that, it is hoped, will elicit a confession out of the local “oddball” whom the police had decided was guilty of the murder.

Throughout much of the drama, Stagg is portrayed as a knife-obsessed Satan worshipper who has unwholesome sexual fantasies – much as he was portrayed by the both police force and the media in the months and years after the murder. It’s an odd choice for a man whose life has been ruined by being falsely accused.

But this four-part series is full of odd choices, appearing in many scenes more like a Giallo horror than a dramatic portrayal of real people in a London of the not-so-distant past. Marsan plays Britton as some sort of sinister Hannibal Lecter figure, a still, monotone performance dripping with a quietly misogynistic menace. He tutors Sadie in her backstory with a subtle yet persistent relish, creating grotesque fantasies for her, which are far more disturbing than anything Stagg could come up with in return. As Sadie gets increasingly drawn into her role of “Lizzie James”, her mind unravels – although it’s hard to feel much sympathy with her, knowing as we do that she’s targetting a vulnerable virgin who is desperate to please her.

Indeed, through much of the drama it is Sadie is who is portrayed as the victim – first of the creepy Britton and ultimately of her own colleagues, who apparently wanted a scapegoat for the speedy collapse of Stagg’s trial. We are treated to scene after scene of her staggering around her gloomy apartment, her mental health degrading as she becomes obsessed with the case, drinking heavily and watching tapes of Stagg’s police interviews, hallucinating his menacing figure watching her from dark corners. Barely any thought is articulated as to how the police are the bad guys, desperate to close their case by jailing Stagg at any price. In the meantime – as we see in the later episodes – Nickell’s real killer, Robert Napper, murdered Samantha Bissett and her four-year-old daughter Jazmine, while the police were too busy chasing an imagined monster of their own creation.

False accusations have been successfully dramatised before – the 2014 miniseries The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries, for example, details the devastating impact media vilification had on an innocent man. Crucially, though, that story was told from the perspective of the Jeffries, rather than those who attempted to publicly shame him. Stagg’s fate is crammed into snapshots in the final episode, through the eyes of the woman who gained his trust, only to betray it. While the final credits pay tribute to Rachel Nickell and Samantha and Jazmine Bissett, the series treats Stagg as collateral damage in a drama that seems more interested in a career cut short than it is in the systemic disregard of basic human rights with which the police operated.

 

Deceit is available on All 4. It is also available on BritBox, as part of a £5.99 monthly subscription.

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