Real Crime - Season 3

Walking home from football practice in Liverpool in August 2007, 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead. The incident caused an outpouring of sympathy and re-ignited fears that gun crime and gang-related violence were blighting Britain's streets. But behind the headlines lay a human tragedy as Rhys's parents Melanie and Stephen struggled with bafflement and grief. Real Crime's Mark Austin interviews the couple, whose decency shines amid the depressing details of the feckless lives led by Rhys's murderer Sean Mercer and his fellow gang-members and protectors. Melanie Jones recalls a blase Mercer and his cocky little group in the dock in court during their trial: "You'd think they were up for shoplifting." Mercer, 18, was jailed for 22 years. His co-accused were convicted of helping him to evade justice. They whooped with delight as they were sent down, says Stephen Jones, and his wife still cannot get to grips with their lives: "Why don't they aspire to be someone?"

In 1992, the TV news constantly ran footage of an attractive young woman dancing gaily across Wimbledon Common. It was Rachel Nickell, who had been brutally murdered in front of her two-year-old son. The police became convinced that she was killed by Colin Stagg, a loner who fitted the profile suggested by forensic psychologist Paul Britton. It took 16 years, a revolution in DNA technology and another, even more violent murder of a young mother before the real killer, Robert Napper, was convicted. Mark Austin pieces together the string of staggering mistakes and oversights by the investigation team that led to the wrongful conviction. What we will probably never know is whether it was mainly Britton's input or the police's determination to get a result that almost let Napper get away with it.

In 2005, Sally Anne Bowman, an 18-year-old model, was stabbed to death and sexually assaulted outside her south London home. Her boyfriend had dropped her there after an argument. But he wasn't her killer -- his DNA didn't match that found at the scene. A media appeal for help produced no suspect. Neither did a voluntary DNA-screening programme in the area. Instead, a brawl the next summer outside a local pub showing World Cup football led to an arrest and a chance DNA match that caught the killer.