Sheridan Smith is welling up with tears, her voice breaking with emotion as she starts to pay tribute to the extraordinary woman sitting next to her, whose remarkable story she tells in her new drama.
Ann Ming made history when she stood up to the legal establishment and forced it to overturn an ancient law after her daughter was murdered and the killer escaped justice.
Ann’s astonishing story will already be familiar to some, but it hits particularly hard when it’s told as a drama in ITV’s new four-part series I Fought The Law.
Sheridan stars as Ann, who, after finding her daughter’s body, launched a crusade which led to her killer being nailed after the reform of the double jeopardy law, which stated that a person acquitted of a crime could not be tried again for the same offence, regardless of new evidence.
At an event to launch her new series, Sheridan’s emotions are never far from the surface, and when she gets choked up, Ann grabs her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
Regaining her composure, Sheridan, 44, says, ‘It definitely is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I just wanted to make Ann proud and get her story the justice it deserves.’
Sheridan Smith has revealed her new role as murder campaign mum Ann Ming was the ‘hardest thing she’s ever done’ – with the work leaving her in tears (pictured on the show)
Ann Ming’s astonishing story hits particularly hard when it’s told as a drama in ITV’s new four-part series I Fought The Law (Sheridan and Ann pictured this month)
She continues: ‘I was emotionally attached to the whole thing very early on. I just couldn’t believe what she’d been through, and how everyone around her had got it so wrong.
‘It wasn’t just losing her child – which now, as a mum, I can’t even imagine how you cope with that – but also the fact that she came up against so many different people and was just ignored. But Ann was like a lioness and she would not take no for an answer.’
In November 1989, Ann’s 22-year-old daughter, Julie Hogg – who was mum to three-year-old Kevin – went missing from her home in Billingham, County Durham.
A forensics team searched her home and found nothing untoward.
Three months later, in February 1990, a bad smell in Julie’s house led Ann to discover her daughter’s decomposing body behind the bath panel. Julie had been strangled, sexually assaulted and stuffed under the bath.
‘I knew something had happened to my daughter from day one,’ Ann says.
‘[The police] seemed to think she’d taken off and gone to London. I knew that wasn’t right. And I think when I found Julie after 80 days, it gave me the strength [to fight], because I’d been proved right. So I’m glad that I’ve got the opportunity to let everybody know the full story now.’
But when Ann found Julie’s body, her tribulations had only just begun.
Sheridan stars as Ann, who, after finding her daughter’s body, launched a crusade which led to her killer being nailed after the reform of the double jeopardy law
Julie’s murderer, William Dunlop, walked free after two trials both ended in hung juries (a second trial can be ordered if a jury is unable to reach a verdict) and so he was acquitted.
Ann says when Dunlop began bragging in pubs that he’d committed the crime but was now untouchable, she began her campaign to challenge the double jeopardy law.
Ann, a former surgical theatre nurse, is now elderly, but she has lost none of the eloquence and passion that propelled her to Westminster to insist on change.
Helped by politicians who took up her cause, Ann met with ministers and delivered an impassioned speech to the House of Lords. She succeeded.
The Blair government modified the double jeopardy law in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which came into force in 2005, and allowed it to be applied to previous cases.
In 2006 Dunlop was convicted of murder and he remains in prison. The following year Ann was awarded an MBE for her services to the Criminal Justice System.
‘I’m glad I did it. But it did take its toll, as my family will tell you,’ says Ann, whose husband Charlie died in 2013 and who has two children as well as Julie.
‘People would say, “Oh, aren’t you intimidated about the House of Lords?” No! Why would you feel intimidated about people? Nobody’s any better than you.’
Pizza delivery woman Julie Hogg was brutally murdered by Billy Dunlop at 22 in 1989 in Billingham, Teeside (pictured)
Ann is the latest in a string of gutsy real women Sheridan has won plaudits for playing, including Cilla Black, Julie Bushby in The Moorside, about the Shannon Matthews case, and Mrs Biggs, wife of Ronnie, in the 2012 drama of the same name, which landed her a Best Actress BAFTA.
‘Playing real people is a privilege and it’s why I do what I do,’ Sheridan says.
‘Difficult emotions just help me to connect with the person I’m playing even more, because I’m just acting, but how are they still standing after going through that in real life?’
Portraying Ann was a really tough emotional challenge for Sheridan because she’s now a mother herself, to five-year-old Billy, from her relationship with ex-fiance Jamie Horn.
‘This is the first real-life story I’ve taken on since becoming a mum, and there are different things I tap into now, especially with what Ann went through.
‘I’ve played parents that lose their kids before, and having lost my older brother [Julian died of cancer in 1990, aged 18] I would always think about what my mum must have gone through.
‘Playing Ann, those feelings were much more raw to tap into, but at the same time I’m able to come home to my child and I realise how lucky I am.’
Sheridan studied hours of footage of Ann to master her mannerisms and Teesside accent.
Ann is the latest in a string of gutsy real women Sheridan has won plaudits for playing, such as Cilla Black (pictured) and Julie Bushby in The Moorside, about the Shannon Matthews case
‘We filmed one scene that there is real footage of online, and it was really important to me that I played that exactly right,’ she says. ‘I even moved my handbag from one shoulder to the other, like she does in the clip.
‘Whenever I play a real person, I want to feel how they felt. I didn’t go to drama school and I haven’t been trained as an actor, so I don’t really know how to turn those feelings on and off; I just really try to go there emotionally.
‘Ann was obviously in a state of angst from the minute Julie went missing, and I really tried to go there. I get mad at myself if I don’t feel the actual pain or the trauma.’
Sheridan admits that immersing herself so deeply in her roles is draining and she’s developed new strategies to cope.
‘I’ve taken up yoga and meditation – can you believe it!’ she laughs.
The series was filmed in and around Newcastle, and Sheridan’s son wasn’t able to join her. She says she ‘pined for him’.
‘It was emotionally taxing,’ she admits. ‘By the end of it, I was a shaking mess. So for Ann to have gone through all that is just remarkable. I mean, I wish I had her strength in real life!’
I Fought The Law airs on Sunday and Monday night at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
A documentary about Ann’s campaign, I Fought The Law: The Ann Ming Story, is on 11 September on ITV1.
