Scapegoat

Here we have an interesting story of a miscarriage of justice. What the movie lacks is any worthwhile dramatization of the facts.

On November 1952 the body of Patricia Curran, 19, was discovered on the grounds of her family's palatial home in Whiteabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Patricia's father, Lancelot Curran was part of Northern Ireland's ruling elite. a member of the Order of Orange, a prominent judge and a former attorney general.

The crime was promptly pinned on Iain Hay Gordon, a 20-year-old RAF technician stationed at a nearby base. Gordon was an acquaintance of the family, especially of Patricia's brother Desmond. In January 1953 he was arrested and subjected to the ministrations of Superintendent Jack Capstick from Scotland Yard, especially brought from London for the occasion. Capstick, whose interrogation methods were nothing short of torture, elicited a confession where Gordon admitted to the murder.

The case went to trial. Evidence was ignored or neglected and the dossier contained inaccuracies, unfounded assumptions and sheer impossibilities. The evidence, as it was, pointed to Patricia's family but the defense team was barred from pursuing this connection and merely succeeded in establishing that Gordon was temporarily insane at the time of the murder. This at least prevented his execution.

To this day, nobody knows who killed Patricia. The movie reenacts two possible explanations: the prosecution's case and another suspected by many at the time.

The film opens with the execution of a Miles Giffard in 1953. He was not connected with the Gordon case and perhaps this segment is included just to show the horrors of judicial murder. Good acting, fluid direction and a careful reconstruction of the period. Worth watching.