The seventh episode of Criminal Record left the present aside and jumped into the past in 2011, six months before the Adelaide Burrowes murder case. The Sixty Twos were talked about a lot, and it was clear that Hegarty, Kim, and Tony were part of this gang, but who played what part in the Errol Mathis case wasn’t that clear. Now we have a clear picture of what happened. We have to keep in mind that we are being told things from Hegarty’s point of view, as he is revealing his story to Lenker, and there may be a part of this story that is hidden from us.
Spoilers Ahead
What Was Hegarty’s Life Like Back In 2011?
Hegarty is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. He sometimes behaves as if he is a racist of the first order, trying to protect Tony and hiding his affiliations with the alt-right groups. However, why is he then acting as Patrick’s guardian? The most baffling thing is that he brings drugs to Lisa, his own daughter. Well, we might not be able to psychoanalyze him with the given information, but in the beginning of the seventh episode, we can surmise that Hegarty was going through some harrowingly painful stuff. His wife had passed away from cancer, and he was left alone to take care of a five-year-old Lisa. Six months before the Burrowes murder, there had been significantly damaging riots in London. Errol was involved in looting and destruction of property, and that came up later in his case. But that wasn’t exactly what got Errol in trouble. Once Hegarty was given charge of the Burrowes murder case, he almost couldn’t believe that Errol had done something so heinous. Hegarty’s emotional life was in tatters, and Errol’s involvement in the riots was responsible for what happened next.
Why Was Hegarty Unwilling To Charge Mathis?
The present shining example of diverse policing, Claudia Mayhew, was the one who told Hegarty in 2011 that there was a lot of heat on the police department to ‘reset the narrative’ and make an example out of Errol. The riots had gone on for five days, and the competency of the police was in question. Kim and Tony had bet their money on Errol being the killer. They weren’t even looking elsewhere. It was Hegarty, though, who was apprehensive about the idea of this new narrative, which essentially had a racist undertone to it because most of the rioters were black people. Hegarty tried hard not to proceed with charging Errol unless there was a provable history of violence or hard evidence. They could keep Errol in detention for a long time, and Hegarty was under a lot of pressure to get some evidence or a confession, but he had to be emotionally on board with the idea of nailing Errol to the cross. According to him, there wasn’t any evidence that would point towards the fact that Errol could kill Adelaide so mercilessly.
When Did Hegarty Have A Change Of Heart?
If Hegarty had not gotten two clues regarding Errol’s temperament, I don’t think he would have gone ahead and charged him. Tony and Kim were raging to get Errol locked up forever and had all sorts of theories about how he had killed Adelaide. However, it was only when Hegarty was on board that the plan to make Errol confess was set in motion. As there was no real evidence found that would remove all doubt that Errol had stabbed and killed Adelaide, they had to get the confession or let him go. Hegarty was feeling guilty about his own life because he knew he was being a bad father to Lisa. He wasn’t meeting her, and had compensated for that by letting Lisa buy a pet dog. Hegarty was still grieving his wife’s death, and when he met Errol’s father, it all came tumbling out. A father was talking to a fellow father. However, Errol’s father was essentially protecting Errol, but Hegarty had come as Adelaide’s father. She was an orphan, and somebody had to speak up for her and bring her justice. Errol’s father saw Hegarty’s reasoning, and it was at that time that he was convinced that it would be morally wrong to not tell Hegarty about the time Errol had stabbed him. This counts as a precedence—a history of violence. Errol had once come to ask his father for money in a drug-fueled state and stabbed him when he declined. Hegarty now had a reason to go in for the confession, as he, too, started to believe that Errol could have killed Adelaide. He knew he had found something that would make Errol confess.
How Did Hegarty Get Errol To Confess?
Hegarty, Kim, and Tony got Errol to go to his apartment, where Adelaide was murdered. The plan was to see if he remembered something, as earlier they had tried grilling Errol, but he didn’t remember a thing. Errol was an emotional mess as he wanted Hegarty to look for the killer, but now that Hegarty had the new information of what Errol’s father had told him, he was honed in on getting a confession out of Errol. Ross Cardona was present when Errol was taken to the apartment, which is why perhaps Errol, too, wasn’t averse to the idea. However, Cardona was sent away, and Errol was taken to the apartment once again, as Hegarty lied about having left his phone behind.
When there was nobody around, Hegarty started to weave his spell around Errol, making him crumble under the weight of what he had lost and why he didn’t remember anything. Hegarty brought psychological reasoning into the conversation and told Errol that he had forgotten because he had killed Adelaide and didn’t want to remember that fact. He wanted to remain guilt-free. Errol figured that Hegarty had brought him back to the apartment to mess with his head and resisted, but it was then that Hegarty took out the tape recorder, which had Patrick’s statement on it.
Hegarty had gone in to check on Patrick in the hospital, and he had told him something about Errol and Adelaide’s relationship. Hegarty had recorded the conversation, and that is what he played in front of Errol in the apartment. Patrick revealed that Errol had fights with Adelaide, and he had threatened to ‘knock her out.’ After hearing this, Errol had a breakdown, signifying that he had accepted that he had been a vile man, and perhaps for the first time, he actually questioned his own belief that he couldn’t have killed Adelaide. He confessed later, following Hegarty’s instructions, and accepted his fate.
Lenker was listening to Hegarty tell his tale, which is when Kim barged in and called him a traitor. He wasn’t riled up because Hegarty was talking to Lenker but because the confidential Hayes Lane Caller’s (Carla’s) tape had been leaked online. It was now public knowledge that Errol was probably not the killer. Lenker was quick to claim that it wasn’t her who had leaked the confidential files, and she wasn’t lying. It was Sonya who, in a desperate measure, had leaked the audio tape online. Hegarty had been vulnerable and revealed his side of the story to Lenker, and this would be seen as a backstabbing measure by him. It isn’t entirely obvious what he is going to do next, but it just might bring the stone-cold version of Daniel Hegarty back into action, making him unsympathetic to Lenker’s cause.
