All about: Crimewatch UK

Crimewatch (formerly Crimewatch UK) is a British television programme broadcast on the BBC. It reconstructs high profile crimes and appeals to viewers for information on tracking down Britain’s most wanted criminals. It has featured over 4,000 cases since it first aired in June 1984, including most of the major crimes of the past two decades. The following article provides you with an overview of Crimewatch UK.

Format

The show is broadcast once a month and works closely with police forces across the country. The hour long programme regularly features three or four reconstructions, often including interviews with victims, relatives or friends. It has been credited with helping to successfully solve many crimes. The senior police officers investigating the crimes are interviewed by the presenters and any available artist’s impressions of suspects are shown. A suspect once handed himself into BBC Television Centre after seeing an impression of himself. The show also features a section of CCTV clips and a rogues’ gallery of "Wanted Faces", eight pictures of suspects that the police want to talk to. A short update is shown later in the same evening.

Presenters

The show uses a combination of broadcast journalists and serving or former police offices to front the appeals. Kirsty Young, Rav Wilding and Matthew Amroliwala currently front the show. Previous presenters include news readers Fiona Bruce, Sue Cook and Nick Ross, whose catchphrase at the end of every programme, "Don’t have nightmares, do sleep well" seemed to have the opposite effect. Most famous presenter
Perhaps, the most famous presenter was Jill Dando, who worked on Crimewatch for four years from 1995. She was murdered outside her home in London, in 1999. Her killer has never been found.

Success stories

The success of the programme is put down to the four to five million viewers who tune in regularly and can pick up the phone to speak directly to officers working on a case. Arrest and conviction The programme has helped to catch some of Britain’s most wanted criminals. The programme has a fantastic success rate with one in three cases featured on the show leading to an arrest and one in five in conviction. As a direct result of Crimewatch appeals, 57 murderers, 53 rapists and sex offenders and 18 pedophiles have been caught. Some of the country’s most notorious and shocking crimes that the programme has helped to solve include the murders of eight-year old Sarah Payne, Lin and Megan Russell, and two-year old Jamie Bulger.