I wasn't aware of this particular scandal which happened some 20 years ago concerning the lurid life and untimely death of the extremely wealthy British nobleman Lord Shaftesbury but I certainly found his story to be a fascinating one, at least the way this Channel 5 documentary, the first in a new series, presented it.
The most famous in the line of past Lord Shaftesburys was the distinguished anti-slavery campaigner of Victorian times, but it soon became clear that when the 10th Lord took on the title over a hundred years later, greatness wasn't on the horizon. A hereditary peer of the United Kingdom House of Lords, it took him 24 years to make his maiden speech there and that a drunken ramble in opposition to Tony Blair's proposed reform of the Chamber.
A picture is painted of a shy man who unexpectedly inherited the title, land, grand house and wealth of the family dynasty and frankly didn't cope at all well with his new position and riches. Married and divorced twice, he soon fell into dissolute ways, spending most of his time and money in Cannes and on young female prostitutes.
It was his sorry fate to fall in with a pretty young French-born single-parent woman Jamila who'd taken to working as an escort girl around Cannes. As he often did, he fell hard for a younger woman, they quickly married and moved into a grand house in the area. Besides two young children however, she also had a temperamental brother who she brought into their household, but when the marriage quickly fell apart and Lord Shaftesbury mysteriously disappeared, suspicion fell on the siblings. When his body was discovered some time afterwards, it didn't take long for the French police to charge the brother and sister with his murder.
Jamila, having had her jail sentence reduced on appeal, is now out and about, proclaiming her innocence on camera although the evidence suggests she was complicit in Shaftesbury's pre-arranged death with her brother as the actual perpetrator. All contrition now, she even wants to apologise to her late husband's previous wife and family for the pain she's caused them, all this while her murderous brother continues to languish in prison for his crime.
This was a sad take on the life of an insecure, rather pathetic old man, unable to take on the responsibilities of his title and position and who instead sought solace in the bottle and attractive women. However he certainly didn't deserve to come to the sticky end he eventually did with his lifestyle splashed all over the tabloid press.
This documentary told the story in a rather formulaic style. With no input from anyone from the late Lord's family, it used stock images of Cannes as well as recycling the same pictures of Shaftesbury and his country estate, demonstrating a lack of depth never mind understanding in telling his sorry tale.
A cautionary tale on how the other half lives, I somehow felt after watching this that the vulnerable old man at the centre of this particular scandal deserved better representation than he got here.
