Coming Soon: Deceit

Premiering next month on Neon is Deceit, a true-crime dramatisation of a “controversial honeytrap at the heart of one of Britain’s most high-profile cases”.

Commissioned under the working title of My Name is Lizzie for Channel 4, it examines the high-pressure investigation into the devastating murder of Rachel Nickell in 1992, encompassing the complicated and toxic sexual politics of the early ‘90s and the police’s obsession with the wrong man. Reads the blurb:

Five months on from the crime and The Met Police are still no closer to capturing the man they’re convinced is responsible.

First identified through a BBC Crimewatch appeal, the evidence is stacked against Colin Stagg. The media feed a national obsession, covering every detail of the case and demanding justice.

The police are determined to catch the man who, in their eyes, is guilty before he kills again. In desperation, the relatively young Detective Inspector leading the case, engages the nation’s most famous criminal profiler to devise a bold undercover operation which will see an attractive, young female officer start a relationship with Colin Stagg.

Growing up under Thatcher’s reign, with second-wave feminism ‘Lizzie James’ (Niamh Algar – The Virtues, Raised by Wolves and Calm with Horses) – is determined to rise through the ranks. But the early ‘90s has brought with it an inevitable backlash in the shape of ‘Lad Culture’, obliterating any feminist gains and putting women firmly back in their place.

Hugely ambitious, ‘Lizzie’ has found a way to stand out by becoming one of very few female undercover officers deployed in covert operations… And then she’s offered a central role in the biggest murder enquiry the country has ever seen…

With access to previously unheard audio, video and written materials, My Name is Lizzie includes scenes of verbatim dialogue as part of a fictionalised retelling of events, taking viewers behind the scenes of one of the UK’s most flawed and controversial police investigations.

Eddie Marsan, Harry Treadaway, Sion Daniel Young, Rochenda Sandall and Nathaniel Martello-White co-star in the four-part thriller from Emilia di Girolamo (The Tunnel).

Deceit will stream from August 15.