‘She was never a victim!’: Viewers SLAM Channel 5’s Maxine as they claim show is trying to make a martyr of woman who protected Ian Huntley
- The first episode of Maxine aired on Channel 5 on Monday which looks at Maxine Carr’s tumultuous relationship with murderer Ian Huntley
- Viewers have hit out at the show for making Maxine ‘look like a victim’ as they called for the miniseries to be axed
Viewers slammed Channel 5’s drama Maxine on Monday as they angrily claimed the show was trying to make a victim of Maxine Carr.
The miniseries tells the story of the woman engaged to Ian Huntley, who was responsible for the Soham murders in 2002.
Taking to Twitter one viewer declared: ‘Maxine was never a victim’ while another said the broadcaster should ‘pull the plug’ on the controversial show.
Slamming: Viewers slammed Channel 5’s drama Maxine on Monday as they angrily claimed the show was trying to make a victim of Maxine Carr (Jemma Carlton pictured in character)
The plot looks at Maxine’s tumultuous relationship with Huntley; why she lied for him and how she became ‘public enemy number one’.
And the release date comes 20 years after the murders of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both aged 10 at the time, took place.
Episode one saw Maxine move to Soham for a fresh start with her boyfriend Ian but following a jealous argument with Ian, Maxine visits her mother for the weekend and enjoys a night out in her hometown of Grimsby.
Horrifying: The series tells the story of the woman engaged to Ian Huntley, who was responsible for the Soham murders in 2002 (pictured with co-star Scott Reid)
Role: The plot looks at Maxine’s tumultuous relationship with Huntley; why she lied for him and how she became ‘public enemy number one’ (Maxine Carr pictured right in 2002)
She awakens to the news of the girls’ disappearance, and returns to Soham to provide Ian with an alibi.
One viewer wrote: ‘Maxine was never a victim. The true victims were Holly and Jessica. Can Channel 5stop portraying her as a victim’.
Another agreed writing: ‘Are Channel 5 trying to make us feel sorry for Maxine Carr? A woman who lied & covered for her evil boyfriend A man who killed two beautiful children. It’s 20years since this horrendous & awful event & I don’t think anyone needs to watch’.
Unhappy: One viewer wrote: ‘ Maxine was never a victim. The true victims were Holly and Jessica. Can Channel 5stop portraying her as a victim’
And a third said: ‘If Channel 5 had any decency they would pull the plug on this really not fair on Holly and Jessica’s family’.
Racing to agree a fourth viewer commented: ‘Is this Maxine Carr thing trying to paint her as a victim? F*** you Channel 5’.
While another said: ‘I turned off Channel 5, one it’s bad acting but two it’s shocking they’re making Maxine Carr look like a victim. These are the victims’. Going on to post a picture of Holly and Jessica.
MailOnline have contacted Channel 5 for comment.
The disappearance of the schoolgirls, which happened after a family barbecue in August 2002, sparked Britain’s biggest-ever missing persons’ enquiry – but came to a tragic end when their bodies were found dumped in a remote ditch.
School caretaker Huntley – then 28 – had lured the girls to his house and murdered them before dumping their bodies and burning their clothes.
His then-fiancée Carr who provided him with a false alibi – but was in Grimsby visiting her mother at the time of the murders – was jailed for perverting the course of justice but released in 2004 with a new identity.
She was dubbed ‘The Most Hated Woman In Britain’ following the trial, which saw Huntley admit to killing the children, but claiming their deaths were accidental.
Final photo: Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered by Ian Huntley on August 4 2002 (pictured two hours before their disappearance)
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: Why has television got so much sympathy for Ian Huntley’s hated helper Maxine Carr?
Rating: 
How soon is too soon? Ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered more than 20 years ago, in August 2002.
To many, including me, who remember the desperate search for the missing girls and the national sense of disbelief, their deaths still seem raw, almost recent.
Perhaps it is because when a child is killed, their parents are condemned to spend the rest of their lives mourning the loss. Those girls would barely be 30 now. Their contemporaries might be getting married or starting families: in that sense, the two decades since their murder is no time at all.
On-screen: The three-part series examines the police investigation into school assistant Maxine and her caretaker fiancé Ian from Carr’s perspective
The three-part serial Maxine (C5) tries to avoid any suggestion of exploiting the crime, by focusing solely on the killer Ian Huntley and his girlfriend Maxine Carr, who lied to give him an alibi.
Nothing of the murders is shown — only a glimpse of the aftermath that night, when Huntley has driven into the countryside and is sitting at the wheel of his car, suppressing his panic. Later, distant voices of a search party are heard, shouting. The girls’ parents are seen only for an instant, out of focus, at a press conference.
Holly and Jessica themselves are never seen, unless they are the two little girls at a school desk, one brunette and one blonde, chatting in one brief scene to classroom assistant Carr (Jemma Carlton). Clearly, this is done out of respect to their families.
Nothing of the murders is shown — only a glimpse of the aftermath that night, when Huntley has driven into the countryside and is sitting at the wheel of his car, suppressing his panic. (Pictured: police officer from the new series)
But the effect is to erase them from their own story — and place Carr herself at the sympathetic heart of the script.
Who is Maxine star Jemma Carlton?
Born in the West Midlands, Jemma is a newcomer to the screen with Maxine marking her TV acting debut.
She graduated from Rose Bruford drama school in London in 2019.
The actress performed in and wrote numerous stage productions while at college as well as short films.
She is recognisable from a string of high profile adverts for the likes of McDonalds.
Carlton plays her as an immature, needy and insecure young woman, so selfishly desperate to maintain the fiction of a happy relationship with Huntley that she deceives herself about his guilt.
Scott Reid’s powerful performance as Huntley shows him as thoroughly unpleasant, a controlling bully with a jealous temper. But he, too, is granted a small measure of sympathy, made to seem more weak than evil.
It’s a naive interpretation. No doubt Maxine Carr really did want to keep her house and her boyfriend, and her dreams of getting married and having children. Lots of 25-year-olds do.
But only a heartless psychotic could suspect the truth and make a deliberate decision to bury it.
If this drama depicted Carr as a woman afraid for her own life, terrified Huntley would kill her, too, if she failed to back him up, she might deserve at least the partial benefit of our doubts.
Instead, she’s lying because she cares about no one but herself. There were hints, as Carr embellished her story for the benefit of reporter Brian Farmer (Steve Edge), that she was starting to enjoy the attention. Carr did not commit the murders. It’s a grim mistake to assume she must therefore be, to some extent, a victim of Huntley herself.
The three-part serial Maxine (C5) tries to avoid any suggestion of exploiting the crime, by focusing solely on the killer Ian Huntley and his girlfriend Maxine Carr, who lied to give him an alibi. (Pictured: a snippet from Maxine)
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