Jane Andrews: why jane andrews drama left family in tears
Rick Cressman said the new four-part drama about jane andrews left him “very, very tearful” as he watched the final episode, more than 25 years after his brother Tom Cressman was killed. The programme’s portrayal and the wider media attention have reopened long-standing family concerns about memory and legacy.
Family reaction and tears
Rick Cressman, a business owner from Warwickshire, said watching the ITV series brought him to tears. He described protecting his brother’s memory and legacy as increasingly important after what he called repeated intrusions over the past 25 years. “By the time we got into the final episode, I was feeling very, very tearful, ” he said. He added he had cooperated with the media over the years out of a sense of duty to his brother and that he could not have his brother’s memory or legacy “besmirched by people just creating stuff. ”
Attack and conviction details
Tom Cressman, a businessman, was attacked with a cricket bat and fatally stabbed by his partner Jane Andrews while he slept at their London home in 2000. Andrews, who was then 34 years old, denied murdering Tom Cressman because he would not marry her but was convicted of the murder and ordered to serve at least 15 years in prison in 2001. Andrews, from Cleethorpes, north-east Lincolnshire, had been employed by Sarah Ferguson for nine years and was later involved in police efforts to track Andrews down.
Jane Andrews and The Lady
The new four-part ITV series called The Lady premiered on Sunday night and follows the life of Andrews, who worked as the former Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson's personal dresser. The drama stars Natalie Dormer as Sarah Ferguson with Mia McKenna-Bruce as her dresser, Jane Andrews. ITV described The Lady as a "gripping true crime drama" from the makers of The Crown about Andrews, "whose rise and fall culminated in a brutal murder. " Rick Cressman said he had been concerned about ITV commissioning the drama and that they gave him a private screening. He said: "It is a problem to fictionalise a genuine living story we're living and breathing; our family's here and I've always tried to cope with a lot of the intrusions that we've had to cope with. " He also said: "It's very difficult and that was always the biggest issue for me, facing up to the announcement [in] December of 2024 that they were going to do a four-part fictionalised drama. "
Centre for Women's Justice comment
Harriet Wistrich, CEO of the Centre for Women's Justice, who represented Jane Andrews at her appeal in 2003, commented in anticipation of the ITV series. She said Jane Andrews was convicted of the murder of Tom Cressman over 25 years ago, had long ago served her prison sentence and had attempted to move on. Wistrich said Andrews continues to be the subject of media interest because of her past employment with what Wistrich described as the now discredited section of the Royal family, and that media interest is intensified each time another one-sided TV programme is made about her case. Wistrich said Jane has not contributed to The Lady nor to any of the previous multiple TV documentaries made about her, leaving the public with a one-sided view that fails to explore why a vulnerable woman in her circumstances may have been driven to kill.
Wistrich added that prosecution case and media coverage can distort the underlying story, relying on sexist tropes such as "fatal attraction killer" and "gold hunter", and that in many such cases there may be an underlying or hidden history of abuse and control, as she says there was in the case of Sally Challen. She suggested that the precedent created in the Sally Challen case and greater understanding of coercive control and mental health vulnerabilities could assist Jane Andrews in a fresh appeal, should Andrews wish to explore one. The Centre for Women's Justice said it had prepared a more in depth press briefing providing context and background to the case of Jane Andrews. Copyright © 2016 - CENTRE FOR WOMEN'S JUSTICE a Charitable Incorporated Organisation: Charity No. 1169213
TV listings and cultural context
Critics noted Natalie Dormer and Mia McKenna-Bruce star in The Lady, which tells the story of Jane Andrews. One review said the four-parter starts with a working-class Jane trying to fit in with this new royal world while managing her worsening mental health. The same listings piece highlighted other television and cultural items: coverage of the BAFTAs hosted with a golden-ticket angle by Alan Cumming; a performance by KPop Demon Hunters; Winter Olympics coverage including a biathlete’s confession and an ice routine described as Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson’s giddy highland fling; the Winter Olympics closing ceremony at the Verona Arena handing the 2030 baton to the French Alps; and a concert in Lisbon featuring the Gulbenkian Orchestra conducted by Aziz Shokakimov playing Ravel’s La Valse, Debussy’s La Mer and the symphonic poem Vltava by Bedřich Smetana.
The listings piece also referenced film and television repertory programming including Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 Breathless, with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and a range of critics and columnists including Hollie Richardson, Jack Seale, Ali Catterall, Ellen E Jones and Simon Wardell. Entertainment listings cited television sport fixtures: Premier League football Nottingham Forest v Liverpool at 1pm followed by Tottenham v Arsenal at 4. 25pm; Women’s FA Cup Chelsea v Man Utd at 1pm and Liverpool v Everton at 4pm; and Six Nations rugby France v Italy at 2. 20pm from Stade Pierre Mauroy in Lille. Other television items mentioned included Alan Carr and Susie Dent overseeing a quiz with 12 brainboxes and a contestant named Ollie.
Rick Cressman also warned that multiple dramatizations have been filmed around the murder over the years, and pointed to another production he said was on the way from ABC News and Disney Plus, which he said would be the 12th TV production. That sequence of dramatizations and programmes, he said, underpins his concern about how his brother’s memory is presented.
Closing: The Lady’s dramatization of long-running events including the 2000 killing of Tom Cressman by Jane Andrews, the family’s reaction, legal commentary and the wide slate of contemporary television coverage together frame a renewed public conversation about portrayal, memory and possible legal avenues.
