Ann Ming on her fight for justice and the new ITV drama series

Ann Ming, the courageous mother who took on Britain’s political and legal systems to bring her daughter’s killer to justice, has watched every drama in which the “brilliant” actor Sheridan Smith has appeared.

Seeing Sheridan’s “uncanny” portrayal of her in a new four-part series in which she captures everything – the heartbreak, trauma and breathtaking resilience – that Ann experienced after discovering her daughter, Julie Hogg, had been brutally murdered, before going on to bring about a change in law was, therefore, bittersweet.

“I cried all the way through. It took me back to the most awful times,” says Ann, 79.

“They couldn’t have picked a better actor. It was like watching myself, as though she somehow got inside my head.

“Sheridan has this ability to take on a role and become that person – she must have really studied my mannerisms through watching documentaries.

“I think it must have taken a lot out of her emotionally, because to play the role of someone who lived and breathed this, as I did, would be exhausting. Having seen her in so many series, for the person she was playing this time to be me was very strange. I said to Sheridan, ‘The people you play are usually dead, but I’m still alive, and I think you’ve done a great job’.”

When Ann, who lives in Billingham, County Durham, and whose book For The Love of Julie the TV script is based on – met Sheridan on set, the actor said it had been “a privilege” to take on the role. 

Ann, who was made an MBE in 2007, is one of the most remarkable British women of her generation, having brought about a change in the 800-year-old double jeopardy law – the law that prevents an accused person being tried for the same crime twice if they have already been acquitted.

Following Ann’s 15-year campaign, the law changed in 2005 to allow retrials for serious offences if “new and compelling evidence” is found and it is deemed to be in the public interest.

She succeeded in her legal battle ignoring the many – even her own solicitor – who doubted she’d win. The year after that legal victory, Julie’s killer Billy Dunlop became the first person to be charged twice with the same offence and, ultimately, to be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Ann, a nurse and mother of two surviving children, was propelled into the spotlight 36 years ago in the most traumatic of circumstances. Her eldest daughter, Julie, 22, who had recently separated from her husband, was a pizza delivery driver. One November night in 1989, she’d left her three-year-old son Kevin with her parents, Ann and Charlie, while she worked a late shift.

When Ann tried to return Kevin home the following morning, there was no sign of Julie. She knew immediately something was terribly wrong and contacted police who insisted it was too early to file a missing person’s report and that Julie had “probably gone to London”, where her ex had recently moved, but her mother stressed that Julie would never willingly have left her young son.

A “forensic” police search of Julie’s house a few days later yielded no clues as to her whereabouts and in the weeks that followed there was little progress, with officers still insisting she’d probably “gone away”.

However, three months after Julie’s disappearance, Ann made the most horrific of discoveries, an experience that, had the police done their jobs properly, she would have been spared, and one that haunts her to this day. 

In February 1990, Julie’s husband, who had moved back into the home they had shared with Kevin, complained to Ann about a “terrible smell” emanating from the bathroom. Ann investigated and on removing the side panel from the bath, was hit by a “putrefied smell”. 

Lying beneath the bath was her daughter’s decomposing body, undiscovered by police for three months.

It is hard to imagine a worse fate for any mother and Ann was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder soon after.

“I had nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, sleeplessness, paranoia,” she says. “I’ve had treatment, but I will never recover from PTSD and certain things, including Dunlop applying for release or transfer to an open prison, still trigger the symptoms. It’s a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.”

A postmortem revealed Julie had been strangled and sexually abused.

Dunlop, a local labourer, was arrested and charged with her murder, after her door keys were found containing his fingerprints under a floorboard at his home. His hair was also discovered on her body and his semen was on the blanket he’d wrapped it in.

The jury at his trial, in May 1991 at Newcastle Crown Court, was told by the prosecuting barrister that Dunlop had become angry when Julie rebuffed his advances after he turned up at her home, so he killed her and then sexually assaulted her.

However, they failed to reach a verdict, leading to a retrial, which also ended with the second jury being unable to come to a decision and so they were directed by the judge to acquit Dunlop.

“The police just didn’t provide enough evidence to convince the jury and yet within weeks of being acquitted, we heard Dunlop was bragging in pubs that he’d killed Julie. It was utterly unbearable,” recalls Ann.

“I was preoccupied with thoughts of Dunlop having got away with murder, as well as anxiety about future victims,” says Ann.

“A man like him is a danger to everyone. So I made it my mission to get him off the streets – and I must have been a nightmare to live with.”

In fact, Ann knows all too painfully the pressure this “living nightmare” placed on her relationships, as she and husband Charlie – whose grief wreaked havoc with his health but didn’t propel him on to fight in the same way as his wife – separated for a few months at around this time.

They had been reunited for many years when Charlie died, aged 88, in 2013 after Ann had nursed him through Parkinson’s and dementia.

“He never came to terms with what happened to Julie and his health continued to go downhill,” says Ann. “It was very sad, but our family could never be the same again after what happened to Julie.”

Kevin is now 39 and since the age of 13 has supported his grandmother on every step of her campaign, including last year objecting to Dunlop being given early release. He is there to help with any technical issues.

As Ann’s 80th birthday approaches in December, she says the fight continues. Dunlop told the hearing considering his early release last year that Ann had been “the bane of my life. I used to hate her”.

He remains in prison and is now requesting a transfer to an open prison. There will be a public hearing to consider it this December. Ann is upset and angry that so much taxpayers’ money is being “wasted” on these appeals for release and transfer via the Parole Board. She is also concerned about no longer knowing what Dunlop looks like, because he spoke, but refused to appear via video link, from an unnamed prison last December.

“He was 27 when he murdered Julie. He’s now 61,” she says.

“If he escaped from an open prison, and I wouldn’t put it past him, how would I know him? How would my family know him? They’re supposed to be creating more transparency for victims’ families, but where’s the transparency in that?”

Ann cannot bear even to contemplate the idea of Dunlop being released.

“Life should mean life,” she says. 

“I hope I’m dead before he gets out.”

And she has no fear of death, knowing that Kevin “will continue to keep up the fight with the Parole Board” and that Julie “will be waiting for me”.

Ever since Ann gave a talk to promote her book in 2008, she has taken solace in the belief that Julie is “looking down” on her.

“There was a lady in the audience and, when I’d finished, she came over and said: ‘I hope you don’t mind. I’m a spiritualist medium, and all the time you were talking, your daughter was standing beside you, and she said: “Tell Mum I’m really proud of what she’s done, and I’m holding a bunch of pink carnations”,’ says Ann, her voice cracking, as she blinks back tears. 

“Those were Julie’s favourite flowers.

“I was taken aback, but it made me feel better that I had carried on and that she knew I’d done everything I could to get justice for her.”