By Lucy Caulkett-
The BBC has decided to drop crimewatch after over three decades of broadcasting Britain’s most popular night time crime programme.
The show reconstructs unsolved crimes in an attempt to get the support of the public in solving crimes.
Crimewatch has been popular with the public for decades, attracting even working class criminals who kept dates with the BBC’s monthly special crime programme to see if they, or anybody they knew was featured on the programme. Hosted by Jeremy Hunt, the programme was only re-launched last September, making it strange that it would be axed so soon after its re-launch. It is quite possible that limited funds to support its longstanding presenters is to blame, but falling rating is believed to be the reason for the sudden axing of the show.
Its daytime counterpart, BBC’s Crimewatch Roadshow will take its place, and continue to be shown, according to the broadcaster.
A BBC spokesman said: “We believe the successful Crimewatch Roadshow format in daytime is the best fit for the brand going forward and we will increase the number of episodes to make two series a year.
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“We are incredibly proud of Crimewatch and the great work it has done over the years and the work Crimewatch Roadshow will continue to do, and this move will also allow us to create room for new innovative programmes in peak time on BBC One.”
However, the BBC’s daytime crime watch Roadshow is unlikely to attract as many viewers as the monthly night time show which was incredibly popular for years. Many viewers are at work during the daytime show , and will be unable to view the programme as regularly as they would have done with the original night time show. The decision to axe the programme is a shame, and it cannot be effectively replaced by the daytime road show and will certainly not draw as many viewers as the original crime watch.
Sue Cook and Nick Ross hosted the first show in 1984, featuring the murder of 16-year-old Colette Aram, who disappeared as she walked to her boyfriend’s house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, in October 1983.
Cook was eventually replaced by Jill Dando in 1995, but Dando was brutally murdered on her doorstep 4 years later by a killer who was never found. Barry George. George was originally convicted of the killing, and acquitted in 2008. Dando’s murder remains one of the saddest and most unsolved of murders featured on crime watch. She was passionate and persuasive in her calls for the public to identify criminals and bring them to justice. Her own unsolved murder is a painful reality that somewhat presents her as a sacrifice of the show’s success. She helped catch the perpetrators of many murders, but her own murderer escaped justice.
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Crime watch has had its success stories over the years. The disappearance of eight-year-old Sarah Payne on 1 July 2000 led to 16 days of frantic searching before her body was discovered.
Sarah had been walking home from her grandparents’ house through a field in Kingston Gorse, West Sussex, and was never seen alive after that.
After two appeals by crime watch carried out two appeals, Roy Whiting was named as a prime suspect, eventually convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2001. Crime watch was the best chance British police had of solving several crimes, apart from murders. Violent assaults, rapes, robberies, and burglaries, were all at various points featured on the show. An updated version of the show was routinely shown about an hour after the original airing in which viewers were updated with the calls received by members of the public mentioning names of suspects.
On occasions when the same name was mentioned by more than a few members of the public, it provided an extra lead for cops who often came up with the right culprit, who would then be arrested for questioning. Many convictions resulted from crime watch. Criminal offenses have taking place since the beginning of time, and will continue to take place for as long as social misfits exist in society. Desperation, poverty, anger, revenge, are all some of the many reasons people commit crime. None of those reasons are excusable, and the police, and victims of crime will always need the maximum assistance of the public in catching criminals who have offended but not been caught. BBC’s crime watch road show will contribute to catching many criminals, but it will surely be miles of fin competing with the success rate of crime watch.
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