Criminal Record is one of the better shows streaming on AppleTV+ right now. With great actors such as Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo in this riveting crime drama, Criminal Record impresses in the first two episodes. The premise is set for a thrilling showdown between two cops: Detective Sergeant June Lenker and Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty. One man’s life hangs in the balance, and the racial undertones in the show make for some arresting drama that is laced with powerful social commentary. The show intrigues us by introducing us to the characters, and their link is based on a 2011 murder case that Hegarty and his team handled. DS June Lenker finds probable cause to reopen that case, which may help Errol Mathis, a man serving a minimum of 24 years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Adelaide Burrowes.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did Lenker Find Out About Errol?
It all began with an emergency call to East London police station, which was picked up by Jasmine, who later made DS Lenker interested as the call contained some pretty shocking revelations. Lenker became transfixed by whatever the caller, who sounded like a Portuguese woman, said because the details checked out. The caller did not reveal her name, but she was calling because her boyfriend had threatened to kill her with the same knife he had used to kill another woman. What really got Lenker’s attention was that this caller told Jasmine about a man who was serving a sentence for a murder that her boyfriend had committed. There was Errol Mathis, who matched the caller’s description. The caller was right about Errol’s 24-year sentence, and she even correctly named the prison he was in. So does this mean that Errol was innocent and had been wrongfully imprisoned, while the actual murderer was out terrorizing other women? Lenker wasn’t sure, but she passed the information on to her superior, Roy Chambers, and got in touch with DCI Daniel Hegarty, who had investigated the case back in 2011.
How Did Lenker Connect Maria’s Case With Errol’s?
Lenker had a very uneasy meeting with Hegarty. He came off as a racist to her, and as Errol was a black man, she could see how he could have bungled up the case that got him wrongfully convicted given that he referred to Errol as ‘the poor man’s O.J.’. But Errol had confessed to murdering his girlfriend, and Lenker didn’t have anything to accuse Hegarty of. Her resolve to investigate Errol’s case became stronger when she met Sonya Singh, who was Errol’s lawyer and had evidence that might build reasonable doubt in Errol’s case. Later, a distress call came from Maria DeSouza, a Portuguese woman, and she told the police about her boyfriend, who was trying to harm her. Lenker was convinced that this was the same woman who had called a few days earlier. She went in to save Maria, but her boyfriend, Clive Silcox, threw her off the balcony, and she died. Clive was almost nabbed by Lenker, but he assaulted her and escaped. Lenker was lucky to not have suffered a serious injury, but she was being treated for trauma. All she could think of was that Clive was the real murderer. If he could kill Maria, he could have begun with Adelaide. Lenker saw many people, including Mathis’ mother, and found out that Clive knew Errol and had almost gotten married to Errol’s cousin.
How Did Lenker Deal With Hegarty?
Lenker was surprised to see Hegarty at Clive’s crime scene. Hegarty told Lenker that Clive was part of another active investigation, and the Maria murder case was being folded into that same investigation for efficiency. This meant that Lenker would lose all control, and given that she didn’t trust Hegarty, she couldn’t let that happen. She was certain that Clive had something to do with the Burrowes murder case. All Hegarty could say about her claims was that her case only worked if the two distress callers were the same woman, and there was absolutely no evidence to support that claim. The anonymous caller had not mentioned Clive or anything else to suggest that she was Maria who died after falling from the 9th floor. Lenker was obsessed with the case, and when she found out that Hegarty had his crew named ‘The Sixty Two’ work on the Burrowes murder case, she got a hunch that there was something he was trying to hide. She was right, as Hegarty contacted the men in his crew and warned them to get rid of anything that could get him into trouble.
Why Did Hegarty Get Lenker A Meeting With Clive?
Lenker desperately wanted to prove that the two women were the same. That way, she could reopen Errol’s case, as the anonymous caller had given enough evidence for reasonable doubt, as Clive was alive, and he could be investigated for Adelaide Burrowes’ murder. She didn’t stop until she caught Clive. Even after that, Hegarty was trying to make it look like a prank, as the caller was never heard from again, and he wasn’t willing to believe the caller was Maria. Lenker got help from her colleague Chloe and got her hands on Maria’s confidential pathology report. Her case was being handled by Hegarty, and Lenker had one piece of information that she thought would force him to consider her requests. Hegarty agreed to a meeting with Lenker, and she told him that the anonymous caller had told her about how her boyfriend had cut her with a knife earlier. As Lenker had read the confidential reports, she knew that Maria, too, had cut marks on her body. She couldn’t reveal that she had gotten that information from the pathology report, as that would have put Chloe in a spot of trouble. So she lied about having seen the marks when she tried to tend to Maria’s body after she had fallen from the balcony.
Hegarty had to yield to Lenker’s persistence, and he agreed to her request to have an interview with Clive, but there was a strict policy not to mention the Burrowes murder case. Lenker broke that rule and showed Clive a photo of Adelaide Burrowes. Lenker’s superior, Roy, was livid with her, but Hegarty was calm, as he had done forensic research matching the two voices from the calls, and the results were conclusive—the two women were not the same. Hence, Clive’s connection to the Burrowes case was severed. Lenker only later learned that Hegarty had the forensic report way before he had agreed to let her meet Clive. He knew that Lenker would break protocol and get herself into trouble, and then he would walk in calm and composed with the forensic report. That’s why he let her have the meeting with Clive. Lenker met with Sonya, and they both realized that only the anonymous caller knew who the real murderer was, and she was their last hope to get Errol out of jail and put Hegarty behind bars.
