3 x 60
This is a drama that breaks the normal rules and follows three protagonists, for as well as being a gripping and surprising real-life police procedural led by DCI Clive Driscoll, the story follows the parents of the murdered teenager, his father Neville and his mother, Doreen – their marriage broken by the tragic death of their son, but still battling to achieve the justice he deserves.
In 2006 Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll got the job of closing down Deptford Police station and handing it over to developers. Driscoll found the station full of filing cabinets relating to dozens of unsolved cases. One room was bursting with the files of Operation Fishpool - the case of Stephen Lawrence. Driscoll read some of the documents then told his superiors that it was a straight-forward crime in need of common-sense coppering and that he wanted to re-open the investigation.
The murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, by a group of white boys shouting racist abuse and the failure to bring his killers to justice sparked a campaign led by his parents Doreen and Neville Lawrence - which included bringing their own unsuccessful private prosecution for murder – that changed the law as well as attitudes in the UK towards race and the police and ultimately resulted in a public inquiry which found that London’s Metropolitan Police to be “incompetent” and “institutionally racist”.
In 2012 two men were convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence at the Old Bailey. It was a verdict reported round the world and met with jubilation and tears of relief. But the story of the investigation is far less straight-forward and a great deal more challenging and shocking than it appeared. It’s a gripping and emotional story about the ultimately successful conviction of some of the suspects in Britain’s most infamous murder, but it’s also the story of an investigation which was beset by hostility, obstruction and outright sabotage and which exposed astonishing levels of complacency, racism and more within the Metropolitan Police, Britain’s premier police force. It shows a group of police officers battling to secure the convictions that everyone in the country longed for in the teeth of resistance from their own force.
Conviction packs into three episodes six years of meticulously researched, brilliantly acted and deftly realised story in a compelling, moving and disturbing dramatic roller-coaster that speaks to one of the biggest issues of our time.
Conviction was made by perhaps the most ethnically diverse senior production team ever assembled in the UK, with a black producer and director, a black DoP, sound recordist, costume designer, make-up designer, and composer bringing a depth of understanding to a true story that is compelling, disturbing, moving and very timely.
