When Life Means Life

This documentary covers two separate cases: those of Ernest Wright and Mark Martin. Because Wright committed two murders decades apart, his first murder is discussed, then the Martin case, then Wright's second crime.

It has to be said that career criminal Wright never have much of a chance in life. At the age of 8 his parents were using him as a look-out in their illicit endeavours, and he graduated from approved school to borstal to prison. In 1973 he was convicted of the 1971 murder of the husband of his lover.

In 2005, Mark Martin set fire to a squat in Nottingham where he had strangled a young woman. Two other men were present, they like the victim and Martin himself were homeless. The reason Martin was homeless was something of a mystery. He was arrested for this crime, at which point the police became aware that he had boasted about killing two other homeless women, whose bodies were soon discovered. Two other men were also charged and convicted in connection with the final murder and one with two murders. Martin's ambition appears to have been to become a serial killer.

After being released on life licence, Wright returned to his hometown of Bradford where eventually he struck up a friendship with a vulnerable disabled woman. His second murder resulted from this relationship, and could well have been a double murder because he shot two men, although one survived. At the time of his second murder, Wright was 68 years old. Although he attempted to conceal his identity before the crime, the surviving victim realised his assailant could be only one person, so it was only a matter of time before Wright was brought to book.

The film-makers talk to a detective who worked on the first murder inquiry, now obviously long retired he said he didn't believe Wright would commit another murder, but clearly he can never be freed again.