An appropriate adult refers to an adult who acts in loco parentis for a child, or in this case an adult, Fred West, who claimed to have some degree of learning difficulties. Emily Watson plays Janet Loach, Fred West’s appropriate adult. The case initially being investigated is the killing of his daughter Heather, which in the police interviews he freely admits, but later retracts. Fred West played by the appropriately named Dominic West, quickly...

Savage Grace (2007) directed by Tom Kalin, shown on BBC 2. In many ways this was more compelling viewing than ‘Appropriate Adult’. Perhaps that had to do with expectation. I read the blurb about a mother trying to save her son from homosexuality. At once my mind jumped ahead and thought of some kind of religious angle: beatings, prayers, the kid getting locked up and berated for having such ungodly feelings and failings (c.f. Jeanette Winterton’...