THE DETECTIVES
BBC 2 Filmed & Series Directed
Minnow Films
Executive Producer Colin Barr, Ruth Kelly
Editer Rupert Houseman
3 x 60
Nominated for BAFTA Factual series 2016
Nominated for BAFTA Factual Director 2016
Nominated for Royal Television Society Award Factual Series 2016
Nominated for Royal Television Society Award Craft in Photography
Nominated for Royal Television Society Award Craft in Editing
Nominated for The Grierson trust Awards Best Factual Series 2016
Premier at Sheffield Doc Fest 2015
“This briliantly filmed documentary left a deep impression.”
“These are horrifying crimes, Investigated in stark urban settings by blank-faced detectives, but the whole is elevated to art by director James Newton’s camerawork and Richard Spiller’s spine-tingling score”
“Filming a principled and humane documentary about police work and then editing it to the point that it becomes every bit as taut as the most gripping of dramas is this excellent series about Greater Manchester Police’s specialist sexual offences unit manages to be tense and tasteful ”
This ambitious series was stripped across three consecutive nights on BBC Two at 9 o'clock. It features a high-profile historic sexual abuse case that runs across all three films, Starting with the investigation in episode one, the interrogation in episode two, and finishing with the trial in episode three. Operation Canute is an investigation into a friend of Jimmy Saville, Manchester DJ Ray Teret, accused of a string of sex offences against schoolgirls in the '60s and '70s. Led by unflappable DS Carol Barlow, one of the force's most experienced detectives and hard-boiled DC Rod Carter, whose background is in gang crime, we go behind the headlines to see what it takes to crack a case when the crimes took place more than 30 years ago.