Thirty years later (and played by Philip Glenister) he is asked to restart the case.

A junior CID detective, Paul Bethell, was convinced that the crimes were the work of a serial killer, but the investigation hit a dead end. Later that year, friends Pauline Floyd and Geraldine Hughes were found murdered several miles away. A teenage girl named Sandra Newton was murdered in south Wales in 1973. Eventually, the story struggles into view. Working out what is going on is difficult.

Now: Babylon by David Gray, and news bulletins that mention Tony Blair. Then: All Right Now by Free is playing on the car radio. It switches between then and the early 2000s – when the crime is re-opened as a cold case, following advances in DNA testing – with such regularity that the director has to use the unsubtlest of devices to remind us which era we’re in. It is yet another true-crime story, and yet another 1970s period piece wreathed in cigarette smoke. From the off, Steeltown Murders (BBC One) doesn’t inspire much confidence.

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