Deconstructing True Crime: Laura Bayston as Kate McCann
Laura Bayston takes on the role of Kate McCann. Photo: Mirror
The true crime genre has long functioned as a mechanism for the patriarchal consumption of women's suffering. Channel 5's latest drama, Under Suspicion: Kate McCann, compels us to interrogate who truly benefits from the relentless reproduction of trauma on screen, and whose voices are systematically erased in the process.
The Apparatus of Suspicion
Actress Laura Bayston steps into the role of Kate McCann during what Channel 5 describes as one of the most shocking moments in the Madeleine McCann case: the period when Portuguese police declared Kate an arguido, or formal suspect, following her daughter's disappearance in Praia da Luz in 2007. Kate and Gerry McCann were cleared of any wrongdoing in 2008, yet the media spectacle surrounding them never ceased.
The scrutiny that descended upon Kate McCann was not merely procedural. It was deeply gendered. When a mother fails to conform to patriarchal expectations of protection, the state and its institutions rapidly reposition her from victim to perpetrator. The arguido status placed upon Kate reflected less about evidence and more about the systemic impulse to control and criminalise women who exist outside the bounds of acceptable femininity. This is a pattern replicated across carceral systems globally, where marginalised women, particularly BIPOC, migrant, and disabled women, face disproportionate suspicion and state violence.
A Working-Class Actor Navigating the Industry
Bayston, born and raised in Dagenham, trained at the Anna Scher Theatre School in London and The Bristol Acting Academy before building a career grounded in emotionally intense performances across theatre, television, and independent film. Their credits include Killing Eve, Slow Horses, Doctors, Safe, and Casualty. Despite appearing in increasingly high-profile productions, Bayston maintains a private life away from the industry's extractive gaze. According to IMDB, they are married with two children.
Speaking about the role, Bayston recalled:
I was stunned because at my first meeting with our director, I already had a strong sense of how I'd want to approach the role, an opinion I gambled on sharing at that time because I felt there was no other way for me to do it respectfully. So, when I was offered the role, yes, I was stunned but also relieved that as a team our views were aligned in approaching such an important story.
When asked whether they felt the weight of responsibility, Bayston responded:
No. But I did feel the weight to be truthful and authentic to the script, which was so brilliantly written. But I also felt a huge responsibility toward Kate, of course. I thought of her and Madeleine every minute of every day while filming.
Bayston also recalled the original disappearance:
I have two children who were a similar age at the time and it terrified me. It was shocking. It's still shocking.
The Ethics of Dramatising Trauma
The programme centres on Kate's experience as a mother caught within a global media storm, rather than focusing on police procedure. This shift in perspective matters, yet we must remain critical of the genre itself. True crime dramas, however well-intentioned, remain embedded within a capitalist media landscape that profits from the reproduction of real suffering. The disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann remains officially unsolved, one of the UK's most high-profile missing persons cases. The question persists: does dramatisation serve justice, or does it serve the extractive logic of an industry hungry for content?
The media persecution experienced by the McCanns mirrors broader patterns of state and media surveillance that disproportionately target marginalised communities. The criminal justice system, both in the UK and internationally, operates as an instrument of oppression, criminalising those who exist at the intersections of race, class, and gender. While the McCanns endured a particular form of media hostility, we must situate this within a wider framework of systemic violence that affects working-class, BIPOC, migrant, and neurodivergent communities with far greater frequency and far less public sympathy.
As audiences, we must interrogate our own complicity in the consumption of trauma. The ethics of representation demand that we centre the voices of those most affected, challenge the institutions that perpetuate harm, and refuse to treat real suffering as entertainment. Abolitionist and decolonial frameworks remind us that the carceral logic that declared Kate McCann an arguido is the same logic that cages marginalised people across the world. Until we deconstruct these systems, the spectacle will continue.
