Redcap (BBC1): The Hunt For The Camden Ripper (C4): AN SAS patrol in Bosnia is ambushed, there's a traitor in the British camp, and Tamzin Outhwaite's military policewoman Jo McDonagh is sleeping with the enemy.

No change in Redcap, then, and no one could accuse the returning series of not packing a lot into an hour. There were so many characters and such a complex story that the wobbly camerawork and manic zooming in and out was both unwarranted and irritating.

The good news is that now that the regular team is lumbered with frosty Harriet Frost, the fun is just beginning for us, if not for them.

The war crimes and violent murder in Redcap were a teddy bears' picnic compared to the based-on-real-life documentary The Hunt For The Camden Ripper.

There are several possible approaches to recounting a murder story - a fictionalised film or, as here, a straightforward documentary using investigators, witnesses, CCTV footage and, most chillingly, police videos of the suspect being interviewed. Anthony Hardy said little more than "no comment" during interrogation and his trial, when he was given three life sentences.

The murders themselves were horrible enough. He killed prostitutes, photographed them in pornographic poses, dismembered the bodies, put the pieces in plastic bags, and distributed them in rubbish bins.

Not all the body parts were found. Despite pleas to Hardy, he said nothing about what he did with the missing heads to put the minds of the victims' relatives at peace.

Equally worrying were the bureaucratic blunders that allowed a psychiatric patient to be free to kill. Hardy was a divorced father-of-four with a history of alcoholism, mental illness and allegations of sexual indecent assault. He'd been in prison three times for car crime and theft, and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

He always boasted that one day he'd be famous, but chose a grislier route than reality TV to achieve his ambition.

That he was free to continue killing was disturbing, as the year before his capture, a naked corpse of what he claimed was a lodger had been found in his spare room. Two post mortems found the victim had died of natural causes and police were forced to drop the investigation.

Hardy was sectioned and returned to a mental hospital. Staff found him charming and co-operative, unaware that on a day release, he took a train out of London, raped a woman, and returned to the hospital as if nothing had happened.

The day the panel met to consider discharging him, the medical report that he had an untreatable personality disorder lay unopened in an office. He was released, but police weren't alerted. Neighbours who heard screams and drilling coming from his home thought he was doing some DIY.

CCTV footage showed him nonchalantly dumping bags in big rubbish containers. It was impossible to disagree with the policeman who said: "When you consider what that bag contains, it becomes horrific although you haven't seen anything."

Published: 09/01/04