Airdate: The Queen & Zak Grieve

CI will screen what is being touted as an important crime investigation later this month, The Queen & Zak Grieve.

The 90-minute doco is the assembly of six vodcasts produced by The Australian with reporter Dan Box.

He investigates the story of a young Indigenous man convicted of murder and facing a life in prison as a result of the Northern Territory’s mandatory sentencing laws, a decision the judge himself described as an “injustice”.

Director Ivan O’Mahoney said: “This was a unique opportunity for us to work with one of Australia’s best reporters, on a story of national importance and pioneer a new way of long-form documentary storytelling.”

Jim Buchan, Foxtel’s General Manager – Factual Channels, said: “We’re pleased to be working with The Australian, In Films and Screen Australia in bringing our CI audience this important and moving Australian story.

“Dan Box’s investigation highlights how Australia’s mandatory sentencing laws challenge our everyday perception of what justice should look like.”

Dan and his team spent weeks in the Top End town of Katherine investigating the killing and the events that led to Zak Grieve being jailed, despite evidence he was not there when the crime took place. They conducted exclusive interviews with many of the people involved, including the judge who sent Grieve to jail, and obtained rare access to crime scene footage, forensic photographs, police interviews with suspects and trial recordings from the case.

The compelling documentary raises questions about the criminal justice system itself. How could this apparent injustice have happened? Is it time for the mandatory sentencing laws that led to Grieve’s lifelong incarceration to finally be revoked?

 

The Queen & Zak Grieve is produced by In Films for The Australian and Foxtel, with production funding from Screen Australia, in association with Create NSW.

Wednesday September 27 at 7:30pm on CI.