It happened right here — in our justice system — when a vulnerable man was not able to stand up for himself in the face of a police investigation seemingly determined to make him out to be a murderer.
His vulnerability came from his profound deafness, caused through an illness when he was too young to have started speaking.
Thus his comprehension of English was poor and his ability to communicate almost as bad.
Nevertheless, when the police began to investigate the death of Ivan Curry’s 15-month-old nephew, a young constable who had never communicated with a deaf person before was able to elicit a frank confession from him.
He was wrong in his belief that Curry understood what he was asking him and Curry paid the price by spending two years in jail on remand as a confessed child murderer.
When he eventually got his trial the jury took just two hours to find him not guilty.
The inept police case which ignored some pieces of evidence and coloured others had come tumbling down during the trial thanks to the diligent defence counsel.
Much of the documentary was to be found in court transcripts from the 1990 trial.
Documentary maker Keith Hunter, who stumbled across Curry’s story by chance, chose to enliven those transcripts by re-creating the courtroom scenes with actors and Curry, as himself — mute and expressionless, helpless even, in the dock.
The technique worked well.
As prosecution witnesses under cross-examination revealed more and more of the story of how the injustice came to be, it was certainly riveting television.
Frank Whitten as the key defence lawyer was often incredulous as the truth unfolded.
Even if the story had not been true it would have made a fine drama.
The courtroom pieces were linked in with interviews and background to Curry’s personality provided by relatives, neighbours and prison guards.
The “I would never believe Ivan could do such a thing” comments were predictable, but the message was driven home by the prison guards who had no reason to care particularly about him, but they did.
Hunter’s documentary did not over-explain the story.
We uncovered the story as the defence counsel must have done at the time and that made the gasps even more genuine.
When the penny dropped that the baby’s injuries were caused by an over-zealous resuscitation attempt following unconsciousness — possibly through an epileptic seizure — we wondered how that could not have been considered earlier.
The police investigation process takes a battering in this documentary and we can only hope more comes from Ivan’s story than just a gripping and moving piece of television.
Ivan has not yet seen any justice — to be found not guilty is not enough.
