Revelations came thick and fast tonight as Sally (Katherine Kelly) set her sights on taking Karen (Priyanga Burford) down in the third episode of ‘Innocent’.
If you want to avoid spoilers for ‘Innocent’, stop reading now.
The episode opened with Suzy (Laura Rollins) interviewing the man that John (Andrew Tiernan) attacked. He claimed that the attack was provoked and contradicted the statements given by eye witnesses.
A shaken Sally talked to Jenny (Nadia Albina) after being assaulted by Karen. Jenny encouraged her to tell Sam (Jamie Bamber) what had happened or report the incident to the police. That led to Sally calling Sam asking to meet.
Dave (Michael Stevenson) questioned Maria (Lucy Black) about why John had attacked someone in the pub and she told him she had no idea.
The next day Jenny’s husband told her that Sally needed to move out of their house. Karen meanwhile had a row with Bethany (Amy-Leigh Hickman) before the angry girl left for school.
Jenny went to tell Sally that she had to leave and found that Sally had already packed her belongings up.
Mike (Shaun Dooley) and the team shared their theory that the man John assaulted was Matthew’s biological father. They also reviewed items from Matthew’s room and Mike asked for updates on Sam’s alibi and John’s whereabouts.
Sally told Sam what had happened with Karen and asked him to intervene so she would calm down and back off. Sam made excuses for Karen, blaming Bethany’s behaviour for Karen’s short temper, and Sally revealed that she wasn’t going to call the police despite Jenny advising her to. Sam then received a text message and stood up to leave. He asked if he could do anything for Sally and she said he could turn back time so they were still together. Sam embraced Sally as she became emotional and then he left.
John finally arrived home to find Maria sitting in the kitchen. She told him the stories she’d heard about his behaviour before telling him that she never really knew him.
Mike brought Gary (Jason Done) into the station, the man who John assaulted, and told him they believed he was Matthew’s father. Gary denied it and Mike asked him again but got the same answer. Mike turned up the pressure and told Gary he’d pull his life apart to prove he was Matthew’s father if he needed to. As Gary looked terrified, Mike asked him again and he finally admitted he was Matthew’s father.
At school, Sally saw Bethany bullying a girl and went to speak to the victim to find out what had happened.
Gary opened up in the interrogation room and revealed that Matthew had been told who his biological father was. He inferred that he had no idea until Matthew was 16 and he’d wanted to keep the news from his family. Matthew had visited him before his death, upset and confused, and Gary said that John hadn’t wanted the two of them to meet. Gary admitted it became too much for him, which caused problems in his marriage so he told Matthew that he couldn’t see him anymore. Mike then asked where Gary was when Matthew was murdered.
Sally had a conversation with Bethany about the altercation she’d witnessed. She told her she didn’t believe she was really a bully and offered to arrange for her to speak to someone to help her with whatever problems she had. Bethany wasn’t receptive and left the classroom.
John was brought into the police station drunk, and Mike said they couldn’t question him until the next day. Mike and Suzy then decided to focus on verifying Gary’s alibi.
Karen and Sam had another row after Karen claimed that Sally had threatened to expel Bethany after a classmate lied about being bullied by her. Sam hit back saying he knew what Karen had done and she countered by telling him she knew he’d lied about Sally’s visit.
Sally looked up Bethany’s school record and saw that she had a complaint on file stating she was bullied by Matthew.
Once he’d sobered up, John was interviewed by Mike and Suzy and he discussed how he’d found out that he was infertile, which led to him discovering Matthew wasn’t his son. He told them that Maria had encouraged him to keep things secret from Matthew but he couldn’t keep it in when things became difficult with Matthew and the two had a nasty row.
Mia (Janine Wood) searched through Matthew’s belongings and seemed to find something between two Amazon gift cards.
Back in the interview room, John said he tried to calm Matthew down after telling him about his biological father. Suzy asked if the arguments got physical and John said they didn’t. John carried on telling Mike and Suzy that things simmered down and they agreed to let him see Gary. When Mike told John that they’d had a different story from Gary, John contradicted that story and said Gary wanted nothing to do with Matthew and that Matthew had threatened to tell his wife everything. John and Matthew saw one another as John left the station.
Sally shared the information she’d found about Bethany with Mike and highlighted Bethany’s string of behavioural issues. Mike told Sally that Karen had been Matthew’s social worker. Sally thanked Mike for all of his help and Mike asked how she was doing, offering to go out for dinner when she was feeling up to it.
Suzy called Mike and dropped the bomb that the fingerprints on the bottle that killed Mathew had Gary’s finger prints on them. Gary was questioned again and said his fingers could have ended up on the bottle as he sold it at his pub. Mike tried to find out if Gary or John was telling the truth and Gary insisted he didn’t kill his son.
The team worked hard to try and chase down the various leads and Dave was pulled away to speak to the foreman from the building site that John worked on. Dave was told that John might not have been at work on the day Matthew was murder and the foreman insisted John would never have hurt him. That information led to John’s arrest.
Mike and Mia led the interview and John admitted he wasn’t at work and that he saw Matthew in the park where he was murdered on the day it happened. As Mike continued questioning John, John asked him to just ask if he’d murdered Matthew. John said he didn’t kill him but his failings had contributed to it.
Suzy dug into the bullying incident between Bethany and Matthew, and was told that Matthew could be very cruel. She also discovered that Bethany took an overdose of her mother’s codeine pills a couple of months after Matthew had stayed with them.
Mike and Suzy’s next stop was to see Karen and question her about Bethany. Karen said that she’d given her daughter the wrong pills and that Bethany had taken more believing them to be herbal stress pills. Mike told Karen that Bethany actually took 6 pills not four as she’d just claimed. Karen became emotional and told Mike she had been very lucky, but denied that Bethany had intentionally taken the pills.
Sally spoke to Jenny and asked her to write stories about Karen and Bethany. Jenny was appalled, which made Sally angry as she burst into tears and pointed out how her life had been stolen from her.
Following the police’s visit, Karen and Sam had a tense conversation. Karen told Sam that Matthew bullied Bethany relentlessly believing that she’d been telling people about his problems. She also admitted she knew that Bethany had tried to kill herself and the day after the overdose, she discovered what Matthew had done. Karen’s revelations kept on rolling as she admitted to visiting Matthew’s mother to discuss what was going on but Sam said he didn’t believe her. She insisted she was telling the truth so Sam threatened to leave.
That prompted Karen to carry on confessing and she revealed that she had a row with Matthew when he was drunk and shouting nasty things about Bethany. Karen assured Sam that she stopped herself and didn’t follow him. Sam urged her to tell the police but Karen refused. He pushed harder explaining that the police may already have evidence that implicated her.
Sally went into town to buy some flowers and she received a call from Mike asking why she didn’t tell him that Karen was Sam’s partner. Sally said she didn’t think it was relevant and Mike told her to let him be the judge of that. After he hung up, Sally took the flowers to Matthew’s grave where she found Anna (Ellie Rawnsley). Anna said that things weren’t meant to end the way they did and asked Sally if anything had happened with Matthew. Sally insisted nothing had and Anna told her she truly believed they were having an affair so she made the kiss up. Anna then apologised before walking off.
Mike was cooking at home when Dave called him to confirm that Gary couldn’t have murdered Matthew as he was in a meeting that would have been a 5-hour roundtrip. After looking at his evidence board, Mike realised he’d set places at the table for his dead wife and daughter.
Gary was released from police custody the next day as Sam sat outside in his car working up the nerve to go in. Mike and Suzy discussed Karen and Bethany, and Suzy suggested that Karen may have deleted her daughter’s records to remove the link to Matthew. They were interrupted by Sam who wanted to speak with Mike about Karen. He told Mike that Karen wouldn’t hurt a fly but admitted that she hadn’t been honest with the police so he wanted to tell them the truth.
Dave tracked down the person Sam was supposed to have been meeting at the time of Matthew’s death and Mia followed the lead of the Amazon cards, after discovering a fifth one that hadn’t been included in the original investigation.
Mike and Suzy called Karen in for questioning and she lied about having seen Matthew. When she was told Sam had already told them she had and then followed it up with the revelation that Maria had confirmed she’d been at her house, Karen continued to lie. Mike then asked if they could check Karen’s DNA and prints against the evidence, and she consented.
Sam went to see Sally to ask for her forgiveness. He left his phone in the car and he received a call from the man who he was supposed to have been meeting on the day Matthew was murdered. It was insinuated that the man had covered for Sam.
Read our ‘Innocent’ series 2 episode 1 recap
Read our ‘Innocent’ series 2 episode 2 recap
Read our ‘Innocent’ series 2 episode 4 preview
‘Innocent’ continues tomorrow at 9pm on ITV.
