Johnny Go Home: The Murder of Billy Two-Tone

This complex, candid, thoroughly researched, exceedingly powerful two part documentary reveals the profoundly disturbing facts behind the brutal murder of vulnerable teenage runaway Billy McPhee. I found the grisly details of this sordid case to be rather distressing at times, but John Willis's exemplary Johnny Go Home remains an authentic, compelling, wholly credible work of investigative, non-fiction filmmaking. While the poignant, frequently profane subject makes for a bleak, and appreciably melancholy viewing experience, the plentiful footage of early 1970s London provides a vividly fascinating time capsule in of itself.

The first part follows the impoverished transient teenagers as they meagrely attempt to forge a pitiful, conspicuously imperilled day-to-day existence in London. The 2nd, considerably more disturbing segment of the programme grimly exposes the despicable machinations of foul abuser, Roger Gleaves, who shielded a vile, predatory nature behind his wholly fictitious guise of being a benign charity youth worker. Johnny Go Home was a potent gut puncher, and I found the forensic footage of the tortured young man's body grievously unsettling. It seems truly extraordinary that so very little has changed to prevent the continued proliferation of criminal exploitation of so many homeless/ dispossessed children in the UK. The pointed lack of government funding/resources availible to provide help/shelter for these especially vulnerable members of society is damning.