It is because the show is targeted at concerned parents that the killer is so improbable in every way. Small and sensitive, his best subject at school is history and his favourite character Brunel, as is so often the case with teenage killers; honestly, I’ve almost lost count of the number of times Isambard Kingdom Brunel is cited by knife attackers in crime reports. He’s a child we can worry about. But, from a probability angle, he is wildly unlikely to commit a crime, and looks far more like the type of boy who comes home holding back tears because he’s been mugged rather than one who lashes out violently; indeed young men are the most likely of any demographic to be victims of violent crime. That is not coincidental. Conor Fitzgerald observed that ‘to the limited extent that such crimes ever even happen, the perpetrator is usually Jamie’s total opposite. Stephen Graham (the show’s lead actor and creator) has cited a number of stabbings as the inspiration for the show’ and all have a sort of pattern: ‘the …