TV Pick of the Week: Believe Me - review by Yvette Huddleston
Believe Me ITVX, review by Yvette Huddleston
Screenwriter Jeff Pope’s sensitively handled drama about the women who were drugged and sexually assaulted by London taxi driver John Worboys rightly puts the victims front and centre of the story.
Worboys committed these horrific crimes over nearly a decade in the early 2000s, and could have been have been stopped much earlier, and many more women saved from traumatic life-changing experiences, had the Metropolitan police actually made the connection between several reports of sexual assault with strikingly similar details. Eventually over 100 women came forward to report that they too had been victims of Worboys.
In the opening episode, it is 2003 we meet Sarah (Aimee-Ffion Edwards), a single mother, who after a night out with friends clubbing, gets into a black cab to go home. The driver tells her he has just had a big win at the casino and offers her a glass of champagne to help him celebrate. She thinks it a bit strange, but he is insistent and she takes the drink. The next thing she remembers is waking up in hospital. Her recollection of what happened is hazy but she is covered in bruises and has clearly been sexually assaulted. She reports the attack to the police but they seem uninterested to say the least – not following up on information or even keeping in touch. Student Laila (Aasiya Shah) has a very similar experience sometime later, as does Carrie (Miriam Petche). These three women are key to eventually securing a conviction when Worboys was finally arrested in 2008, but it was unnecessarily difficult. Daniel Mays plays Worboys – a tough role to take on – and he is skin-crawlingly convincing in his portrayal of a chilling predator.
Unbelievably – although given previous failings by the police and judiciary, perhaps not such a surprise – Worboys was granted parole in 2018 and was about to be released. The women then had to fight again for justice, appealing the parole board’s decision which they overturned. The fact that they had to revisit their trauma is shocking. What is even more shocking is the percentage figure highlighted on screen after the end credits – roughly 3 percent of rape allegations in the UK result in a conviction, an even smaller percentage of cases actually go to trial. Sometimes TV drama can help to drive change – Mr Bates vs the Post Office is a good example – let’s hope Believe Me might have a similar effect.