Whitechapel

The streets of London's East End are awash with blood. A murderer stalks the night, picking off vulnerable women and leaving them brutally butchered. But this is not the 19th Century; this is not Jack the Ripper – this is a copycat killer and once again the police remain clueless… .For fast-tracked, media savvy DI Chandler it's his first big murder case; for front-line, hard-bitten DS Miles, he’s now saddled with a boss who would rather talk about Emotional Intelligence than gut feeling. Neither of them have a clue, until renowned 'Ripperologist' Edward Buchan draws their attention to the similarities between the Jack the Ripper killings in 1888 and the modern-day murder. The race is on to succeed where police officers failed over 100 years before – to catch the copycat killer before he strikes again.

The unlikely team of fast-track cop-on-the-rise DI Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and DS Miles (Phil Davis) are back on the case, along with their uninvited amateur expert on local murder Edward Buchan (Steve Pemberton) in Whitechapel. Hot on the heels of the Jack the Ripper murders, something dark and dangerous is happening on the back streets of Whitechapel. After a spate of gruesome killings and maimings, Buchan suggests that the crimes seem to replicate those of the much-feared Kray Twins of the 1960s, powerful ganglords who once terrorised the East End of London. Are their underworld murders being painstakingly recreated? For Chandler it all points to one man – but the answer is far from clear when a new set of twins appear on the scene. Decades on from the original crimes, with the danger increasing with every delay, can the Whitechapel team crack the Krays?

Meticulous and obsessional, DI Chandler and his unit are based in Whitechapel – an area drenched in dark history and sinister goings-on. It is where Jack the Ripper carried out his horrific crimes. It is where The Krays constructed their Empire of Crime based on sadomasochistic punishments. This series unearths a Whitechapel full of Gothic shadows, cobblestones and ancient hostelries. There’s fear in the Huguenot weaving houses of Wilkes Street, and terrifying discoveries in the dark corners and rooftops around Brick Lane. Ed Buchan joins DI Chandler and hard-bitten DS Miles as their historical advisor – operating out of the bowels of the police station among musty tomes of the crime archive. Chandler is convinced crimes of the past hold the key to solving crimes of the present. The team is tested by bloody and vicious murders on their own doorstep. Do crimes such as the Thames Torso murders, HH Holmes, The Zodiac Killer and The Ratcliffe Highway murders unlock the truth? In Whitechapel, history isn’t dead - it’s deadly.