A four-part true-crime drama showing how police tried to snare Colin Stagg for the murder of Rachel Nickell begins tonight (Friday) at 9pm on TV.

Deceit starring Niamh Algar as an undercover police woman being used as a 'honeytrap' to prise out a confession was partly filmed in Kent on the Isle of Sheppey.

The Channel 4 film crew shot scenes at Shellness near Leysdown last December. At the time it had a working title of My Name Is Lizzie.

Algar (The Virtues, Raised by Wolves, Calm with Horses) leads the cast as Det Con Sadie Byrne who goes undercover as ‘Lizzie James’ to become sexual bait for a suspected killer.

She said: "I wanted to be two things growing up, an actor and a detective, so this ticked both boxes. But ultimately it was the script and the unique female perspective the story was told through.

"I was only a baby when this event happened so it was incredibly interesting to me and the way this character was portrayed."

The series, produced by Story Films and written by Emilia di Girolamo, examines the complicated and toxic sexual politics of the early 90s and the police’s obsession with the wrong man.

The country was shocked when Rachel Nickell was stabbed, sexually assaulted and left for dead while walking on Wimbledon Common with her dog Molly and two-year-old son Alexander on the morning of July 15, 1992. She was 23.

A passer-by found her son clinging to his mother's slashed body repeating the words "Wake up, Mummy".

Five months on from the crime, The Met Police were still no closer to capturing the man they were convinced was responsible.

Colin Stagg (Sion Daniel-Young) had been identified as the probable killer following a BBC Crimewatch appeal. But the cops had no evidence.

In desperation, Det Insp Keith Pedder (Harry Treadaway – The Crown, Star Trek: Picard), asks criminal profiler Paul Britton (Eddie Marsan) to help devise a trap called Operation Edzell.

With access to previously unheard audio, video and written materials, Deceit includes scenes of verbatim dialogue as part of a fictionalised retelling of events, taking viewers behind the scenes of one of the UK’s most flawed and controversial police investigations.

Stagg, who had been remanded in custody for 13 months, was finally freed after the trial judge threw out the honeytrap evidence.

Rachel's real killer Robert Napper was finally identified by a police investigation in 2002 using more advanced forensic techniques and convicted in December 2008.

He was already in Broadmoor High Security Hospital in Berkshire for a 1993 double murder and is expected to be detained there "indefinitely".

Caroline Hollick, head of Channel 4 drama, said: “The unique female perspective of Emilia’s extraordinary scripts will shine a light on one of the most shocking stories in modern policing, in a drama which combines Story Films’ trademark journalistic rigor with sensitivity and nuance."

Deceit TV trailer

Gabrielle Lindemann, film officer at Kent County Council, said that Channel 4 filmed part of the story on the beach outside a private property and also filmed in Canterbury.

The two-day shoot brought an estimated £32,000 into the county's economy.

Other dramas recently filmed on the Island have included ITV’s psychological thriller Too Close, which used the Kingsferry Bridge for a spectacular car crash, and Sky’s horror series The Third Day starring Jude Law.

The Kingsferry Bridge was also used by Michael Crawford to shoot scenes for the 1975 Christmas special of the BBC sitcom Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em and Robbie Williams used Shellness to film his music video My Life. Click here for more Sheppey TV stories.

The whole of Kent is popular with film and TV producers. The new version of Darling Buds of May has been filmed in Faversham and the final series of Killing Eve was shot on Margate beach.

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