Sambre - Anatomy of a Crime - BBC4 9pm tonight - French crime drama

[IwantToRetire]

One road, countless victims and a predator unpunished for 30 years. The searing, powerful story of France's most notorious serial rapist - and a justice system blind to his crimes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021csv

2 episodes tonight and (I think) all available on line.

Having just watched the Clarement Murders I wonder how this French retelling of true live events will compare.

I wonder how many other countries have stories like this. Women disappearing presumed dead, and crimes not solved. There was a really sobering one set in Canada that I remember.

This has been very well reviewed. I have recorded as too much to watch at the moment. I like dramatisations of real crime. Claremont Murders was really good even though upsetting

I have also recorded as having rather a dreary time at the moment, and so have been watching escapist tv.

But still intend to watch.

I don't actually like dramatisations of real crime much, you're too aware of the real-life victims and families. But, saying that, I did watch the Claremont Murders and thought it was pretty good.

Ooh - I really liked this.

The 6 episodes span the 30 years between the perpetrator's early crimes (whilst in his late teens) and eventual capture.
The interplay between the police and Madame le Judge in two of the episodes reminded me of Spiral.

Oops - at the beginning of the series he is late 20s not late teens. Can't see how to edit my previous post!

it's so shocking I can barely take my eyes off it

Still haven't had time to watch, so will now be doing a binge watch.

I watched the first one. It is a difficult watch. The police are awful. I cannot believe that in the 80s and 90s women were treated like that. I either didn’t notice at the time or just was used to it

I finished it this weekend. It's incredibly harrowing but well worth a watch.

Just on episode 4. Very good. Very depressing but definitely worth watching.

I was hoping there was a thread about this; I’m just about to watch episode 5 and want to see the conclusion. I’m gripped by it but DH isn’t - I feel the fire of fury that these women were so horrifically failed and the perpetrator got away with it for decades. TBH it sits very depressingly with the Pélicot trial, but I think it’s very well-made and acted.

I do really recommend this. Don't watch if you're not feeling emotionally strong, though. (I can recommend Brassic on Netflix for the sad)

I just finished this. It was exceptionally good. But I think 20 years was not enough for a serial rapist. He is surely too dangerous to ever be let out. Although if he does the full sentence he would be almost 80 by the time he gets out

Exactly my thoughts lazymum. Even more horrifically, the RL rapist, Dino Scala, appealed against his conviction - I’m not sure whether that appeal’s even been heard yet.

I have just been watching the episode called The Scientist.

Does anyone know if this brilliant scientist’s geolocating of the ‘zero point’, that found the criminal psychologists’s Type 1 profiling to be completely wrong, was based on fact?

The whole series is riveting and brilliantly acted but so dispiriting. No wonder women are in trouble.

I have just read on here he only got 20 years for 50 rapes too. Unbelievable.

This is very well acted, and the way the characters age is so extraordinarily natural that it is hard to know how they did it.

I’d like to know this too. The series is based on a book by Alice Géraud but I can’t see that there’s been an English translation (and yes, the ageing was brilliantly done).

In fact @ScrollingLeaves I've just found a (French) Goodreads review of the book that mentions a 'police archivist' who 'keeps a synoptic and geographical table over the years by dates, places and MO of the attacks on A4 sheets taped end to end.'

It's possible that the TV series expanded/reworked that character into a standalone one.

Thank you @Halsall, how interesting.

Perhaps the book will be translated after this showing in the U.K. . It seems likely a similar attitude from the police to rape might be here too going back to 1988.
Sadly I should imagine quite a few watching ( if they dared) would have recognised a fair bit.

I remember that in an Oxford grooming case the police lost or ignored a raped girl’s forensic evidence and her mother was repeatedly ignored when she tried to describe what was going on.

The wonderful Mayor losing her job reminded me of the social worker who exposed grooming gangs in Rotherham losing hers.

Finished this last. One of the best French tv dramas (I know it's based on real life). The acting was superb all around. The French Captain who resigned at the end. When it started, I assumed he was going to be the fresh ideas guy who could see how disorganized the police station was. But, presumably, it showed how we are all susceptible to bias and not seeing what is in plan sight. Extraordinary case and series. Will miss it now it's finished.

I think Enzo's wife Stephanie suspected something as she didn't seem that surprised or shocked when he was arrested.
I thought this was excellent. Awful when the police officer said she didn't believe the high school girl's account of being attacked and thought she was just trying to get out of a school test.

I thought it was good the way they conveyed that it wrecked the women's lives and affected them decades later. It affected the way Christine brought up Audrey.

At least Captain Blanchot had the decency to feel ashamed he'd been mates with Enzo and not realised. The old retired Captain probably wouldn't have.

I thought the story of the young, keen, fresh policeman arriving into this case on his first morning but instantly being sucked into and corrupted by the lazy, stupid, obfuscating methods the captan above him was operating - contrasted years later, when it was all to late for him, with how he worked alongside the dedicated, intelligent, commandant who knew how to investigate, - was one of the most affecting and nuanced aspects of the drama.
It was like a secondary tragedy within the whole.

I would not be surprised if that had been true. It was awful.

In the early 1980s Reading police had allowed recordings of their day to day business, and it shocked the nation to hear the appalling way they spoke to a raped woman who came in.

You just would not believe it possible.

TRIGGER WARNING Police dealing with rape victim in horrific way.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09lqp6t