Michaela McAreavey murder: ‘We had no sense of what was to come... it is probably a good job we didn’t’

It’s been 12 years since Michaela McAreavey was killed on her honeymoon in Mauritius and her murderer has never been brought to justice. That is the starting point for Murder in Paradise, a three-part BBC Northern Ireland documentary (BBC One, Monday, 9.30pm) about the bungled police investigation into her death and the failure of the authorities to identify the perpetrator.

The documentary will be broadcast over three weeks – though viewers in the North can watch the whole thing immediately on the BBC iPlayer. For those on the other side of the Border, the first 30-minute episode is a largely unsatisfactory exercise in table-setting. The sense is that the bombshells, if there are any, are to follow.

Reporters Darragh MacIntyre and Allison Morris travel to Mauritius and stay at the hotel – which has since rebranded – where McAreavey was discovered strangled in a bathtub by her husband John, whom she had married just a week previously.

“It brings up a little bit of anxiety,” says John McAreavey. “You start to poke the wound. There’s nothing easy about any of this.”

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MacIntyre and Morris do not hold back in their criticisms of the police. The McAreaveys’ hotel room was not sealed off until more than an hour after her body was discovered – until then, people could come and go as they pleased.

Nor was there any attempt to question guests – or even lock down the hotel. Many staying at the resort were surprised to subsequently discover there had been a murder. John McAreavey recalls one of the police officers casually remarking: “What are you crying about? You’re young, you’ll get another wife.”

“They ruled out other possible motives,” says Darragh MacIntyre of the investigation. “Other guests were unaware that a murder had happened. [The police] had just identified the suspects and that was their case.”

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As anyone with a passing knowledge of the case will recall, three employees of the hotel were arrested. Two were later charged with murder, a third with conspiracy to murder. The murder trial was held in 2012 and the two accused were found not guilty.

Those who followed the trial will also recall how quickly it descended into a circus. “The click, click, click of the cameras, that was the background noise every day,” remembers John McAreavey’s sister, Claire. “We had no sense of what was to come. It is probably a good job that we didn’t.”

The trial and its fallout will be covered in the next two weeks and, from a preview, it seems MacIntyre and Morris have tracked down at least one of the accused (who continues to plead their innocence). Part one, however, is all about reminding the viewer of the facts of the case and the tragedy of McAreavey’s death. Anyone expecting anything more insightful or revelatory will have been underwhelmed.