THE downfall of Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher played out on TV screens across the country last night.

Martin Freeman’s star turn in the penultimate episode of A Confession saw Fulcher come perilously close to losing his job after being found guilty of gross misconduct.

The fallout of the investigation into his treatment of Christopher Halliwell and breaching the force’s media policy put a strain on his marriage and led to his resignation.

He said: “I feel like a madman in a room full of people that don’t understand me. I’m saying the same thing over and over again but nobody’s listening.”

Becky Godden-Edwards’ mum Karen Edwards, played by Imelda Staunton, led a surge of public support for Fulcher, who she thought of as a hero.

She said: “I am a mother who has lost her daughter and that gives me the right to speak my mind because I am absolutely raging about this inside.

“My daughter had her problems but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve justice or we should treat her differently to anyone else who has had their life snatched away from them.”

Becky’s father John felt very differently about the situation and filed a IPCC complaint against Fulcher in September 2013 for the way he handled the Halliwell interviews because the killer confessing to killing Becky could not be used as evidence.

Mr Godden said: “Come to Swindon, commit a murder, you’ll get away with it. I will never trust the police again.”

The disciplinary hearing against Fulcher in January 2014 took up most of the hour as his years of commendable work in the force went up against a breach of the Police And Criminal Evidence Act and inappropriate contact with the media.

He received a final written warning and went straight back to work but in a severely demoted position overseeing a charitable initiative called The Bobby Van.

South Swindon MP Robert Buckland made a cameo appearance in the drama which used actual footage of him in the House of Commons pushing for a reform of PACE after Karen Edwards brought a petition with 40,000 signatures to Downing Street.

Despite their best efforts, no action was deemed necessary.

Steve Fulcher resigned in May 2014. A week later, police announced that they had found 60 items of women’s clothing near a pond in Ramsbury – one of those items was a boot belonging to Sian O’Callaghan.

Sian’s mother Elaine, played by Siobhan Finneran, seems haunted by thoughts of what happened to her daughter, refuses to meet Karen Edwards and decides to marry her partner Pete.