Murdered for Being Different

Bacup, Rossendale, Lancashire on 11 August 2007, and Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend Robert Maltby were set upon by a pack of feral thugs - their crime was to be different, to dress differently from their attackers. The attack left both Sophie and Robert in comas, Sophie would never wake up, murdered for being different. This BBC film tells the story.

Back in the dead part of 1970s Great Britain, I was a Punk Rocker, something that to many was akin to being the Devil's spawn. So much so a car swerved to try and hit me one day as I crossed the road, the ignorance and intolerance back then still manifests itself today, quite often with tragic and hateful consequence. Upon watching Murdered for Being Different, the impact of the overwhelming sadness is only rivalled by the revulsion at those responsible for Sophie's death.

The film is a valid and highly worthy production, picking up on the burgeoning love between Sophie and Robert, and then taking us to that fateful early August 11th morning. We observe the immediate aftermath and subsequent investigation into the incident, the effects of such on family and a key witness to what had unfolded. The pic is guilty of cutting corners, we really should have had more on the attackers post the attack, on how they reacted in the run up to their arrest (media tells us they were unrepentant scum), while a tactful omission of Sophie's mother in the play is noted with respect but still leaves a hole.

But ultimately complaints are churlish, for this makes its mark. It's very well produced, the performances very tight, with Abigail Lawrie as Sophie doing her proud and Reiss Jarvis superb as the conflicted key witness Michael Gorman. Soundtrack is pin sharp, right up to the finale which is played out to the haunting grace of Placebo covering Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill. A distressing viewing experience but one that all should be privy to, point made and hopefully a jolt to the system of any human being with the potential for hate crime in their black hearts. 9/10

Hate crimes unfortunately always have been, are and will be. This docu-drama goes straight to the point - it depicts one painfully tragic case without any unnecessary pathos or moralising. Actors were great, especially the main couple and that boy. And to those sadistic - and thankfully properly punished - teenage @!#$%& (I don't know a word that expresses the level of contempt and disgust I feel for them), let me quote the judge's final words: 'At least wild animals, when they hunt in packs, have a legitimate reason for so doing, to obtain food. You have none and your behaviour on that night degrades humanity itself".

Murdered for being Different is a true life drama about the killing of young Sophie Lancaster (Abigail Lawrie) who was just 20 years old.

Sophie and her boyfriend Robert Maltby (Nico Mirallegro) were attacked in 2007 in their home town of Bacup in Lancashire by a gang of young thugs. Their crime was that they dressed up as Goths and this alternative lifestyle provoked them.

Sophie was kicked to death as she tried to defend Robert who himself suffered serious injuries.

As Robert's mother tries to comprehend what has happened to her son and tell him that Sophie is not going to recover from her injuries the police investigate and try to coax Michael Gorman a witness to the attack to tell them who the culprits were.

The attack is incomprehensible, we are used to seeing people being randomly picked on for being coloured or gay but these are people who just liked wearing dark clothing and make up. It is not even Goths are new, I knew several when I was a teenager and that was 3 decades ago. The only radio station you get to hear The Cure these days is a golden oldies one.

It is a harrowing drama but despite that it really had little that was new to offer. It was well acted but it did trod a predictable path. The police wants the witness to talk as they put the pieces together, the cowardly thugs threaten him with reprisals.

Well directed, well acted, dramatic and inspiring movie! It was surprisingly good to me.

I first heard about the murder of Sophie Lancaster on the news - and remembered being horrified by the very notion that someone could be brutally murdered simply for the way they dressed.

The present time of the film, after the attack, is layered with minuscule to longer flashbacks of both Sophie and Rob's life together and the night of the attack. Sophie was well into Harry Potter and Rob was good at painting, using Sophie's back to portray wings.

The use of the songs throughout the film were brilliantly segued into the score - and the last one heard was a cover of Running up that Hill, by Kate Bush.

"If only I could make a deal God, then I'd get him to swap our places."

It's a really heartbreaking, well acted, tragic story of a beautiful life being so cruelly and senselessly cut short.