Deadly Harvest

A taut new drama recreates the tense police investigation of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin

- Benji Wilson

The idea for The Interrogation: Tony Martin came to filmmaker Dave Nath a few years ago. After finding success with C4’s riveting 2015 documentary The Murder Detectives, he had been sifting through some transcripts of old police interviews with various suspects.

‘The first one I came across was for the boxer Terry Marsh who’d been arrested for the attempted murder of promoter Frank Warren,’ recalls Nath, ‘I thought, “This reads like a film script.”’

TRUE STORY

Nath set himself a challenge – could he make a TV drama just by using the words from real police transcripts?

The upshot is C4’s new drama , which tells the story, using the actual police transcripts, of the 1999 case of Martin, who was arrested for shooting The Interrogation: Tony Martinburglars who’d broken into his Norfolk farmhouse. one of them, 16-year-old Fred Barras, died of his wounds and the case became a huge news story.