Mystery of the Man on the Moor, review: there was no neat ending for this fascinating true story

In the wake of Making a Murderer, true crime on television is booming. Those hoping for similar thrills and spills from Mystery of the Man on the Moor (Channel 4), however, would have been disappointed. Sarah Hey’s documentary had no particular points to make about society or justice. It didn’t even really have a crime. Instead, it was a small, strange, unsettling story that stayed with me long after the credits rolled.

The Moor in question was Saddleworth in the Pennines. The Man, a tall, greying, smartly dressed corpse with no ID. Enter Greater Manchester’s finest, DS John Coleman and DC Nichola Chapman

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At first, progress was quick: CCTV brought images of the man pottering around Manchester Piccadilly train station for an hour, “as if he was exploring or lost or didn’t quite know where to go or what to do”. A thyroxine bottle he was carrying had, in fact, contained strychnine. Gradually, frustrations mounted. A metal plate in the man’s leg was found to only be legally available in Pakistan, but the trail went cold. Red herrings came and went. Occasional media campaigns brought diminishing returns.

And then, a year after the man was found, the National Border Control Centre found records identifying him as 67-year-old David Lytton, sometime croupier and London Underground driver. Without telling estranged family, his few friends or his partner of 35 years, Maureen, he had left for Pakistan 11 years ago, with £215,000 from a house sale. What he got up to there remained a mystery, as did his decision to travel to northern England to end it all.

Lytton had changed his name from Lautenberg after a family feud. His brother Jeremy surfaced, and his vague insights spoke volumes: “The fact that it didn’t make any sense makes perfect sense if you knew David.”

There were omissions and compressions (Maureen was never given enough of a voice), but I’m inclined to be charitable and suggest there were simply too many conundrums to satisfactorily resolve. Lytton supposedly hated the heat, yet spent a decade in Pakistan. He “never took so much as an aspirin, apart from the thyroxine”, yet dosed himself with poison. He “loved life”, yet seemingly chose to end it.

There won’t be a Coleman and Chapman spin-off any time soon. These were not “characters” looking for a second career in television, just professionals doing a difficult job with extraordinary patience and diligence. It’s just a shame they and indeed Lytton’s few intimates won’t ever discover the definitive truth they deserve. Unlike fiction, real life seldom provides a neat ending.