- The Observer
40 11.08.19 Focus
N
o one who learns
how the police got
the killer Christopher
Halliwell to confess
can help but won-
der what they would
have done: break the law and face
the consequences? Or toe the line?
Actor Martin Freeman was no dif-
ferent when he watched interviews
with the controversial investigating
offi cer Det Supt Steve Fulcher back
in 2011.
“Before you even realise it you are
thinking, how would I have acted?”
says Freeman ahead of the broad-
cast next month of A Confession,
an ITV drama series in which he
plays Fulcher. “I was hit by what a
very high price Steve paid, and is
still paying, for doing something,
although not legal by every letter
of the law, that you would be hard
pushed to fi nd anyone to say was
terribly wrong.”
From the moment Fulcher
arrested Halliwell on suspicion
of kidnapping 22-year-old SianO’Callaghan the clock was ticking.
The detective believed the missing
woman might still be alive and so he
did not wait for the suspect to have
access to a lawyer, even though this
would inevitably damage his career
and any future court case.
“Certainly this drama makes you
wonder if you could ha ve been so
brave, because who, with a life at
stake, would really wish Halliwell
had been given the opportunity to
clam up?” asks Freeman.
O’Callaghan’s short walk home
from a Swindon night club in the
early hours of Saturday 19 March
2011 should have taken her less than
15 minutes. But she never made it
back. The police’s fi rst evidence that
an abduction had taken place came
when a text from her worried boy-
friend was shown to have been
received on her phone 12 miles away
near the Savernake Forest at 3.24am.
How had she travelled so far?
On the following Wednesday,
Fulcher and his police team sud-
denly called off a volunteer search‘The detective’s moral
dilemma drew me in’
of the area. They had tracked down
the driver of a green minicab seen
pulling up next to O’Callaghan. He
was Halliwell, a 47-year-old father
of three.
Halliwell was arrested in an Asda
carpark as he attempted to buy a
large number of paracetemol tablets.
The next step should have been to
caution the suspect during the short
drive to Gablecross police station.
Instead, Fulcher took Halliwell to
Barbary Castle, an iron age hill fort,
for hours of personal questioning.
The strategy worked, although it
did not save a life. Halliwell even-
tually revealed that O’Callaghan’s
body was buried near Uffi ngton.
The killer went on to reveal that
another body, belonging to Becky
Godden-Edwards , a 20-year-old
missing for nearly a decade, was in a
Gloucestershire fi eld.
Later Fulcher was accused of
breaching the guidelines of the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act
(Pace) and both Halliwell’s con-
fessions were deemed inadmissi-
ble as evidence. In January 2014 the
detective was found guilty of “gross
misconduct”. He resigned from
Wiltshire police that spring.
“The biggest tragedy is the
women who died and their families.
But this is an awful thing that hap-
pened to him,” says Freeman. It was
the wider implications of the police-
man’s dilemma that drew him to
the screenplay. Scriptwriter Jeff Pope
agrees: “This is not just about how
the bodies were found. It is about
what we want our police to do.”
The detective’s actions were
largely supported by the fam-
ily of O’Callaghan and by Godden’s
mother, Karen Edwards , who is
played by Imelda Staunton in Pope’s
drama and who campaigned to
change procedure laws, Pace, to give
more protection to the police.Christopher
Halliwell, left,
was convicted for
murdering Sian
O’Callaghan,
below, and
Becky Godden-
Edwards, right.Martin Freeman
plays DS Steve
Fulcher in a
drama about the
arrest of killer
Christopher
Halliwell.
Photograph
by Camilla
Morandi/RexMartin Freeman talks
to Vanessa T horpe
about why he agreed
to play a real life police
offi cer who broke the
law to bring a double
murderer to justice
Interview
It is the fi rst time Freeman has
played someone he has actually met
and he found it an interesting pros-
pect. Impersonation was never the
plan, the actor says: “I did put in a
few mannerisms that were help-
ful and germane, but not if it meant
railroading a scene just so I can
show what research I’ve done. ”F
reeman was gratifi ed,
though, “from an ego
point of view”, by the
reaction of Fulcher’s
family, who felt he had
captured the man they
know. There is a proviso, though. “By
Fulcher’s own admission, the man
I met was not the man I would have
met in 2010. I do know he was never
fantastic at suffering fools. And that
may have been instrumental in what
happened to him afterwards, since if
I have rubbed you up the wrong way
and you see an opportunity to kick
me in the nuts, you might take it. It
is pretty beyond question he was a
very good copper. And when people
are very good at their job, sometimes
people resent it.”
For Freeman, the role was a fresh
chance to underline his versatil-
ity. Since his breakthrough lead
role in The Offi ce in 2001, he has
dodged typecasting. “ I could easily
have made a career of doing lovable
schmucks ,” he says.
Freeman’s subsequent portrayal
of Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit fi lms
and his stints playing opposite
Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock
have also loomed large.
He hopes A Confession will give
viewers a version of Fulcher’s story
that stays “near the truth”: “We
haven’t made anyone into a demon
or an evil idiot.” Pope also wants his
screen version to offer some car-
tharsis for the former detective ,
who has complained to him of the
trauma of feeling that he is shouting
out, but that no one can hear him.
Halliwell was eventually convicted
for both murders and is unlikely to
ever be released , but the case was
deeply damaging for the detective.
With luck, Pope feels, his series can
provide a neater conclusion.
There is “no question” of a second
series and this fi nality is something
Pope knows that Freeman values.
“I like things being fi nite,” the actor
agrees. “With a cultural thing, I am
always glad things end. They are
supposed to end.”A Confession will be on ITV in
September‘This is not just
about how the bodies
were found. It is
about what we want
our police to do’
Jeff Pope, scriptwriter
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