The Central Park Five9.15pm SaturdayIt was a crime that rocked New York City and made headlines around the world. A young, white female jogger was raped and left on the brink of death in undergrowth in New York’s Central Park. Five black and Latino teenagers were quickly arrested, charged and jailed for the sickening crime in April 1989.But more than a decade later, and after all five had completed their jail terms, a whole different picture emerged that pointed to a ghastly miscarriage of justice.In ‘The Central Park Five’, acclaimed documentary maker Ken Burns and his daughter Sarah Burns present a wide-reaching retelling of the heart-wrenching saga, allowing the five formerly convicted men to speak at length about their experiences on the day of the crime, their arrests and ‘confessions’ and the media storm surrounding the case. They reflect on the loss of their youthful years (they were aged between 14 and 16 when arrested and jailed) for a crime they maintain they never committed, and for which their convictions were eventually vacated.With the respected Mr Burns sharing the helm on this documentary, the production values are high and that is just as well, as ‘The Central Park Five’ runs two hours in length. If there is any criticism it is that the documentary feels as though it is solely advocating for the ‘Five’, due to the lack of input or explanation from the law-enforcement and prosecution side of the case. Perhaps this is because a request for such involvement in the project was denied. However, this is not made clear.What is clear is that five teenage boys, dubbed a ‘wolf pack’ by the media, had their young lives wrenched from them in the maelstrom that engulfed them in the wake of the rape of the Central Park jogger. The documentary presents a picture of frightening interrogation techniques deployed by detectives that in turn led to videotaped confessions from the youngsters which ultimately sealed their fate in court. It shows the frenzy of outrage sparked by the crime, and failings by the media and the legal profession to pick up on evidential contradictions that were all too obvious when a district attorney pointed them out in 2002 shortly before the convictions were vacated.‘The Central Park Five’ provides a gripping narrative on an infamous crime, reminding us of a time when New York City was a far more troubled metropolis, blighted by racial undertows and a rampant, violent wave of crime.If you’ve ever wondered what happened next after the ‘wolf pack’ headlines died away and the Central Park Five were put behind bars, this documentary presents a thought-provoking follow-up. It casts new light on what increasingly appears to be a shameful episode for the New York authorities, the underperforming media of the day, and those who rushed to judge five young teenagers from Harlem.