I'm just old enough to remember the great furore regarding this infamous criminal case in Britain as it happened. For days, it seemed, after its occurrence, the disappearance of Mrs Muriel McKay in London in late 1969 was never off the front pages. Clearly taken in error, when the real target was later believed to be her husband's boss, Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch's first wife, Fleet Street had a field day with their coverage of the surrounding events. Eventually, two brothers of West Indian origin were convicted of kidnap and murder and sentenced to lengthy prison terms as a result, the older of the two, implicated as the more controlling one, indeed died in prison, while the younger one didn't see the light of day for 20 years and was deported back to the Caribbean immediately he was freed.
Using contemporary TV coverage, press articles of the time and latter-day interviews with some of the principal parties in the case, most notably, the still alive younger brother now out to clear his name and some of the children of the missing-presumed-dead Mrs McKay, the case was noteworthy for being the first reported kidnapping within these shores as well as seeing both the defendants convicted without a dead body ever being found.
There was however considerable physical and circumstantial evidence against certainly the older brother, Arthur Hosein, including his fingerprints at the crime scene, while there appeared to be less to incriminate the much younger brother Nadim. There was even an interesting later revelation that a third brother in the family, the oldest sibling Adam, who significantly only died earlier this year, might also have been involved, but had been smart enough to prepare a solid alibi over his movements on the night of the crime.
The younger Hosein tries to plead his innocence on camera but it's clear that the daughters of Mrs McKay disbelieve him. Personally I found it hard to believe he knew nothing of his brother's actions, especially as he lived with him at the time, along with some apparent evidence which appeared to involve him in both the planning of the crime and in the succeeding ransom demands. Now at an advanced age, when he says words to the effect at the beginning that he wishes to say his piece and clear his conscience, the hope for the McKay family must have been that he was going to at last reveal what actually happened the night their mother was abducted and perhaps offer them closure by revealing the true fate of Mrs McKay and where her remains had been deposited - the then highlighted press rumour that her body had been fed to the pigs on the Hosein farm was revealed as arising from a speculative, throwaway remark by a journalist.
I've seen better assembled and more pointed documentaries of this type even as I accept that it was probably better to leave things open to individual interpretation by the viewer in the absence of any dramatic new evidence coming to light. Unsurprisingly, for these times, a possibly revisionist accusation of racism against the the two brothers was brought to the surface although I found the claims of police brutality, beating up the Hoseins during their interrogations, a bit easier to believe, I must say.
Nevertheless, I still found many aspects of the programme of interest despite its rather workmanlike assembly. The now broken and damaged extant younger brother looks as if he's not long for this world and with the prior deaths of his two other brothers, it looks as if he will be the last Hosein to go to his grave leaving the surviving McKay family bereft of their last best hope of discovering their mother's body, to finally lay her to rest.
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