Review of Believe Me – this powerful, intelligent drama is a model for other TV shows | Television

Men 1982, filmmaker Roger Graef created the first fly-on-the-wall documentary, in 12 episodes, about the police. One of the scenes – A Rape Complaint – showed Thames Valley detectives aggressively questioning a woman with a history of psychiatric medication who said she had been sexually assaulted by three strangers. “This is the greatest music I’ve ever heard!” is a representative example of police communication techniques used. The story caused a public outcry (particularly as it was aired after a court ruling in which a judge criticized the rider for being “careless” in his rape) and led to the formation of a police rape inquiry a few months later.

It has been seen as a pivotal moment in changing the way victims of crime are treated and cared for. And maybe it was, at least for a while. But it is difficult to say with certainty that any progress has been maintained or built. Rape rates are very low and there is a growing number of documentaries and dramas – historical and recent – that show the role of the police in creating this phenomenon, be it their negligence, indifference, incompetence, misogyny, operational abuse (times like that of Met police officer Wayne Couzens, a Sarah Everard) or any combination of the above.

We can add to this drama Believe, which consists of four episodes about women who were drugged and raped by a man called “black-cab rapist”, John Worboys. It shows their natural desire to get justice for themselves and other victims which the police and courts seem to have no interest in providing.

Created and written by Jeff Popeit follows his reliable habit of removing the perpetrator (he’s currently playing Daniel Mays, your go-to guy for weak, despicable male characters, and I hope it’s clear that’s a compliment) as far as possible in the background. “I don’t really want to try to get into the minds of psychopaths,” Pope said. And how can you be, when the courage of some ordinary people, and the failures and weaknesses of others – and the latter organizations build in their image – give a lot of yield?

Believe me follows the stories of a few of the 14 women who said they suspected they were drugged and beaten by Worboys – indicated by things like unexplained bruises, torn tights, grease on their thighs, their genitals and lack of memory after being squeezed into the driver’s party camp at the big champagne casino. The 14 were also among the 100-plus women who attended Worboys’ trial and conviction.

Only the first two episodes were available for viewing. They focus on Sarah (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), who is taken in by Worboys after a night out with her best friends, nine months after giving birth to her first child; and Laila (Aasiya Shah), who gets into a car alone after her friends unceremoniously drop her off at a club. Sarah woke up in the hospital not remembering how she got there. When she finds sores, lube, torn tights, pain, she tells the police – who, it turns out, are the ones who sent her to the hospital after a kind driver dropped her off drunk. No, he didn’t get his details. No, they don’t have him on CCTV.

Sarah’s terrible test follows (director Julia Ford focuses on the contorted face that every woman knows from a smear test, if nothing else), and then a lot of suspicious and inconsistent questions from the police, especially when they tell them that she has coke at the club. A series of failures to properly research everything follows, of the kind you can’t imagine making if you’re inventing things. And then the case is closed. Laila faces the same process, with added shame, because she has to explain again and again that part of her evidence is that she had her period (and was sick because of it, not drunk) and that she woke up with her jeans button undone and her tampon missing.

The women and their suffering – not initially, but in the months and years to come, the result of the beatings and scornful disbelief – are real and understandable. Worboys are given as much space in the story as they need. The sharp, clever writing makes it a compelling and unconventional drama that some would do well to learn from, and that makes Pope’s next project, about the murder of Sarah Everard, less intimidating.

Will this – will – change the way we deal with this widespread violence? Well, that’s another story.