The mother of a murdered newlywed has expressed her grief after learning that the tragedy would be the subject of a new BBC series. Anne MacPherson says her family have been "ripped apart all over again", accusing the broadcaster of reopening the family’s wounds by focusing on her daughter's shotgun killing in the drama Sherwood, which starts on Monday (June 13).
Just weeks after 23-year-old Chanel walked down the aisle in 2004, she was shot dead by her abusive dad Terry Rodgers, 55. Rodgers, who had been violent to his wife and three children, hid from police in woods for three weeks.
When he was caught, prosecutors refused to accept his denial of murder but admission of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He went on hunger strike and died a month before his March 2006 murder trial. He never said why he killed Chanel, as reported in The Mirror.
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Anne said: “How dare they do a programme about my poor daughter which will be watched by millions?” The makers of Sherwood approached Anne, of South Normanton, and said the drama would be done sensitively.
But she said: “How can my daughter’s murder be played out sensitively? I wanted nothing to do with it. I don’t want to watch it but I’ll have to, reluctantly, as I need to see how my daughter and our family are being portrayed and what they’re saying about us.
“They are ripping my family apart all over again, and we’ll get the backlash. The programme has brought it all up again for me. It makes me so cross. They don’t know what they have done to my family for so-called entertainment.
“They better not be winning any gongs for this show. The whole nightmare… we’re just going through it all over again. It’s wearing me down.”
The six-part series will also feature the unrelated killing of an ex-miner. He was murdered in Annesley Woodhouse – the same village where Chanel was shot dead. Anne said time never heals and she misses Chanel just as much today as when she first lost her.
“I suffer from headaches, but this has now given me the biggest headache which won’t go away,” she said. Sherwood, which stars the likes of David Morrissey, Phillip Jackson, Lorraine Ashbourne and Joanne Froggatt, has been written by James Graham.
It is set in the mining village where he grew up and depicts how two murders shatter the community, which is already fractured from the 80s miners’ strikes. Graham, who has written numerous other dramas including Quiz and Coalition, said: “It means the world to have this opportunity to bring the voices of a community I grew up in to BBC One.”
Shortly before Chanel was murdered, Robert Boyer brutally killed ex-miner Keith ‘Froggy’ Frogson on his doorstep. He was shot with a crossbow and hacked to death with a sword.
Boyer then set fire to the house with his victim’s daughter and her husband still inside. Both Boyer and Rodgers fled into woodland and evaded police capture for weeks.
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More than 450 officers took part in the search for the men and “wanted” posters of Rodgers were pasted on lampposts and shop windows. Boyer, 42, later admitted manslaughter and was given an indefinite hospital order by Nottingham Crown Court.
Sherwood is described as being “inspired in part by real events”. Local people have been quick to pan the plot. One said: “What UTTER garbage. Make it all up why don’t you.” Another branded it “codswallop”.
But David Morrissey, who plays a police chief in the show, leapt to its defence. He said: “I think one of the great things about drama is it can personalise these events. Far too often, history for us is seen from afar and seen in front of numbers and figures.
“What is wonderful in his [Graham’s] work is he gives a voice to ordinary people. This is a drama that is predominantly present day but shows a much more complex time around the miners’ strike. It was very important to give a voice to all of those people. I am very proud of the drama.”
A BBC spokesman said: “Production worked closely with a number of people locally throughout the making of the series to ensure their stories were told with sensitivity, and respected those who preferred not to be directly involved.
"As a result the decision was made to heavily fictionalise the series, rather than create a literal adaptation of any events, including inventing new characters, names and stories. Sherwood is a story that is personal to James Graham and inspired in part by events within the community in which he grew up, over many years.”
Sherwood airs on BBC One at 9pm on Monday, June 13
