Peter Manuel: The End of Evil?

Serial killer Peter Manuel was hanged in July 1958. Fifty years on, this excellent dramatised documentary presents not only commentary by the usual talking heads but interviews with people who knew him including one of his gaolers and victims' relatives, obviously now all are very old.

Manuel was a nasty piece of work through and through; the closest thing he ever showed to humanity was confessing to his crimes on condition that his family would not suffer; his father had clearly lied for his son, destroying forensic evidence.

Manuel's early life was unusual; he was born in New York where his family had located hoping for a better life; when that didn't work out they moved eventually back to the UK, Coventry, where they were bombed out during the Second World War before relocating finally to Lanarkshire. He already had a substantial criminal record before he committed his first murder, which today would have stopped him in his tracks due to modern forensics, alas he went on to kill again and again and again.

What motivated him remains to be seen; although he was also a rapist, his victims - male as well as female - were snuffed out without rhyme or reason.