‘I hope it makes some noise and puts noses out of joint’

King of true-crime drama Jeff Pope tells Gabriel Tate about his latest show Suspect’ and what drives him to probe the minds of notorious criminals like Fred West or Jimmy Savile

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“I remember thinking, brilliant, they got one of them.” Jeff Pope’s horror is tangible, even over Zoom, but his instinctive reaction to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes was likely one shared by millions when the news broke that a suspected suicide bomber had been shot at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005. It came 15 days after the 7/7 bombings that killed 52 and injured more than 700 across London’s public transport network, and just a day after four more failed explosions that left a second terrorist cell at large.

As we swiftly discovered, it was not “brilliant”, nor was De Menezes “one of them”. Suspect: The Killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, on Disney+, subjects both assumptions to rigorous interrogation. A four-part dramatisation of 7/7, 21/7 and the shooting of De Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician who was pinned down and shot seven times in the head by firearms officers, it relates a grimly familiar story of avoidable errors, reputation management and obfuscation by the Metropolitan Police. In short, the sort of story in which Jeff Pope specialises.

Most of his true-crime dramas from the past three decades have gripped an audience, made headlines or sparked debate, and more commonly all three, from Appropriate Adult and The Reckoning (which he exec produced) to A Confession and The Walk-in (which he also wrote).

Pope’s interest in criminality was nurtured on the Ealing Gazette’s training programme, where he would cover as many trials as possible. “I’m drawn to the most dramatic stories,” he says. “By default that’s going to involve capital crime, [and] huge emotions, issues and stories.”

Overcoming the concerns of his dad (who hoped his son would pursue a safer career in science or the civil service), he moved into local television to make eccentric vignettes for weekly magazine