We had seen in the previous episode of Criminal Record that June Lenker had become obsessed with the case of Errol Mathis, and she realized that she wouldn’t be able to stop until she found the truth. Hegarty was confident about the fact that he would be able to keep Lenker under control and that his secrets wouldn’t come to light. So, let’s follow the events of episode 5 and see if June, together with Sonya, made any kind of headway.
Spoiler Alert
Why did June go to meet Tony?
June Lenker had become obsessed with Errol Mathis’ case, and she wanted to prove that whatever she was thinking was not false. Her husband thought that she was joining the dots where there was no connection, but June knew that her intuition couldn’t be wrong. June just couldn’t focus on anything else in her life, as the entire time she kept thinking about what Hegarty’s next move could be. She asked a neuropsychiatrist if it was possible to plant a false memory in somebody’s mind. The expert told her that it was much easier than she thought, and that’s when June’s suspicions strengthened even more. The expert told her that a part of the brain called the hippocampus can get affected when a person experiences a trauma, and that’s when memory loss could happen. Leo, June’s husband, was getting a bit tired of her obsession. He was of the opinion that June should stop getting involved in it and let Hegarty do his work. He knew that she was compromising her family’s safety because Hegarty was a dangerous man, and he was capable of doing anything.
But June just couldn’t leave the case at that juncture. She knew that in the future, she might have to bear the consequences of her actions. June went to meet Clive, who was in prison, and she showed him photographs of Hegarty and his two friends, Tony and Kim, and asked him if they were part of the combat league. Clive told her that though he hadn’t ever seen Hegarty in the league meetings, he had once bumped into Tony. After this revelation, June probably did the worst possible thing—she went straight to Tony’s house and asked him to his face if he was a part of that fascist organization. By doing so, June not only jeopardized her family’s safety; but she also put her career at stake. Firstly, she should have known that Tony was not going to accept anything in front of her, and additionally, Hegarty would have gotten to know about it and taken some sort of action. At this juncture, Hegarty believed that he had enough leverage over June, but then Kim Cardwell did something that spoiled his entire game.
Did Hegarty plant drugs on Jacob?
Tony called Kim Cardwell and informed him about what had happened and how June Lenker came, asking him questions about the combat league. As soon as Tony learned about it, he asked two of his officers to go and plant drugs on Jacob, June’s son, and take him into custody. He wanted Jacob to be in custody, so that June could realize that she had messed with the wrong people. Roskill and Waite went and did what was needed and took Jacob, who was returning from school to the police station. When June learned about it, she rushed to the police station, and she presumed that Hegarty was behind it. She had a very bad fight with Leo, as he believed that probably the police officers were right and somebody else had kept that stash of drugs in Jacob’s bag. Leo thought that June’s preconceived notions were not letting her think rationally, and he crossed the boundary and told June that, considering her family has a history of mental illness, he just didn’t want to take Jacob for his word. June lost her cool, and she ended up having the worst day possible. June was burning with anger, so she used the information provided to her by Sonya.
Earlier in Criminal Record episode 5, we saw that Sonya was tracking Hegarty’s movement, and she got to know that she frequently visited a drug dealer named Miras Mansoor. At that juncture, neither Sonya nor June had any clue why Hegarty visited the drug dealer, but now June wanted to get back at Hegarty and tell him that what he had done with her son was not fair. She took Mansoor into custody and asked him to call Hegarty and tell him to meet her at a specific spot. That’s where, in Criminal Record episode 5, we got to know that Hegarty was actually, for the first time, unaware of the incident, and it was Kim who had acted on his own accord. Hegarty asked June to leave Mansoor and, in turn, promised her to remove her son’s name from the criminal database. Hegarty additionally told June that her assumption that Tony was a part of the combat league was absolutely false. He told her that he was a Coldstream guard and that he had worked as an undercover agent since he joined the forces. The way Hegarty said it made me feel like he was speaking the truth. Probably, Hegarty had nothing to do with the fascist group, though I cannot rule out the possibility that he was involved in some really dark and shady business.
Hegarty was furious as he was forced to make a deal with June, and if Kim hadn’t done the stupid act of planting drugs on her son, he would have taken action against June for harassing a disabled man, i.e., Tony. Hegarty went to Kim and told him to take permission before he took any sort of action.
What did June reveal to Doris?
At the end of Criminal Record Episode 5, there were two major developments that have the potential to change the course of events in the near future. Firstly, June and Sonya decided that it was about time they told Doris that her son was not guilty and that they had reason to believe that he had been wrongfully framed. They made Doris listen to the call recording of the day when Carla gave the emergency helpline a call from that phone booth in Heyes Lane. Doris wasn’t able to stop her tears when she got that validation. For years, she had been single-handedly fighting the authorities in the hope that one day, some miracle would take place and she would get some evidence to prove that Errol Mathis was innocent.
Secondly, another twist came when we learned that Hegarty was not buying drugs for himself but for his daughter Lisa. Lisa came back after meeting Patrick and then injected herself and passed out on her bed. We don’t know how she became so addicted or why Hegarty did not do anything about it. I believe that there are a lot of things about Hegarty that we still don’t know. He has done some very dark things in the past, and now that his reputation is at stake, he is trying his level best to hide the truth. In the subsequent episodes of the Criminal Record, we will get to know if June takes a step back or if she keeps investigating the matter, and additionally, if Hegarty is able to fend for himself and his colleagues.
