Channel 5 look at the bizarre world of The Earl, his Lover, the prostitute and her brother

A Very British Sex Scandal…

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury was one of Britain’s wealthiest men, scion of an historic family whose assets included grand properties in the UK and France, a 9000-acre estate and works of art worth tens of millions of pounds. He split his time between the ancestral family home in Dorset and the French Riviera where he enjoyed a hedonistic lifestyle, all funded by his multi-million-pound inheritance.

When the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury mysteriously disappeared in 2004, there was much speculation around his disappearance, from his family and friends and the media…

This programme tells the story of the life and untimely death of Lord Shaftesbury – whose decomposed body is found dumped in a ravine at the foothills of the Alps several months after his disappearance.

For the first time ever, Channel 5 hear directly from the woman convicted and jailed for aiding and abetting the Earl’s murder, his estranged wife, Jamila M’Barek. Jamila confessed to police that her brother Mohammed M’Barek had killed the Earl in a crime of passion but denied it was pre-meditated murder.

This feature-length documentary unravels the bizarre stories surrounding this high-profile murder, featuring interviews with Jamila’s lawyers, detectives who worked the case, reporters who covered the story, details of police recordings of Jamila’s phone calls, and archive footage.

A Very British Sex Scandal: The Earl & the Escort, Channel 5, tonight at 9pm