Death on the Common: My Mother's Murder

Many years back, two year old Alex Hanscombe witnessed the death of his beautiful young mum, Rachel. This documentary takes a look back at Alex's younger life, and shows where he is now.

I do enjoy a documentary, and I don't think I've ever felt this way about such a show as I did here, this made me feel very uncomfortable, the only way I can describe it, I felt like I as a viewer was intruding into a grief that felt very private.

All I could feel was a sense of absolute, sheer hatred for the killer, loathing for the press, but also adoration for Alex, and sheer, total respect for Andre, for getting his son away.

Alex, what an incredible, inspiring, brave and all around awesome human being you are, what a brave and courageous man you are.

It's genuinely one of the toughest watches yet, it's very well made, totally sincere, just maybe it's Rachel's tragic death that is just too utterly awful to recall.

This doco has a simple premise. Nearly 30 years after a young mother was murdered in a London park, her son, who was two years old and who was found bashed beside her body, returns to London from Spain with his father to speak to people who worked on, or who reported the case. The men are bitter at police and media - understandingly but perhaps unfairly so, but they also are very measured and good listeners when interviewing people. I think the police were doing their best - trying to catch a violent offender, but it's true that police didn't probably understand how traumatic it was to make the grieving boy and his father re-live what happened.