Crimewatch is
Britains top rated factual
television programme and is now in its sixteenth year of transmission.
The programme was for many years hosted by journalists Nick Ross and Sue Cook, but most people will now associate the programme with presenter Jill Dando who was fast becoming the UK's favourite blonde 30 something following the ageing of Selina Scott and the death of Princess Diana. Jill was murdered outside her Fulham house in April 1998, sparking an outpouring of grief only topped by the death of Diana herself.
The show appears to be extremely successful in helping to catch criminals via its detailed reconstructions, photofits, CCTV clips and nationwide appeals for confidential evidence. The show its success however, relys the general publics inate morbid fascinations with murder, rape, pillage and robbery, although since the show reconstucted the murder of my best friends step-father on his doorstep the fascination has taken on a more sinister tone.
The show starts just after the 9pm watershed on BBC1 and makes particularly haunting viewing on your own, on a cold winters night with the lights off.
As those supposedly comforting words Nick Ross utters at the close of each show roll off his tongue ;
"And remember,....Don't have nightmares!"
you can rest assured that you WILL have nightmares!