A mum’s dogged fight to bring her daughter’s killer to justice will dramatized in the new ITV drama 'I Fought the Law'.

According to reports Sheridan Smith will star as determined mum Ann Ming who created legal history after spending 17 years working to overturn the 800-year-old double jeopardy law, which prevented people being tried twice for the same offence.

Mrs Ming and her husband, Charlie campaigned to get the law changed, backed by The Northern Echo, and in 2006, Billy Dunlop was finally jailed for life for the murder 1989 murder of her daughter Julie Hogg.

The Northern Echo: Julie Hogg was murdered by Billy Dunlop.Julie Hogg was murdered by Billy Dunlop.

The campaigning mother was left furious after she found her daughter’s mutilated body hidden under the bath at her Billingham home and set out on a fight to bring her daughter's killer to justice.

Dunlop twice stood trial for the killing in 1991, but two juries could not reach verdicts, and he walked free because of the "double-jeopardy" rule.

However, Mrs Ming's dogged determination was rewarded after Dunlop's prison confession to the brutal killing was used against him and he was finally brought to justice.

Officers carried out a fingertip search of Julie's home but turned up nothing.

Three months later, her mother, Ann Ming, was handed the keys to Julie's Billingham home and followed a smell to the bathroom.

That led her to the decomposing body of her beloved daughter - a discovery which was missed by Cleveland Police and led to a compensation pay-out over the handling of the case.

The mother-of-one lay naked and concealed behind a bath panel, covered by a blanket.

Defiant Dunlop who was 26 at the time, was arrested and charged with murder 13 days after the body was found but it would be a further 15 years before he was eventually convicted of the brutal murder.

The Northern Echo: Killer Billy Dunlop.Killer Billy Dunlop.

In 2006 he became the first person to be tried under the new rules after Ann’s campaign to overturn the law.

He was convicted of murder and jailed for life.

In 2022 the Justice Secretary blocked a bid to move Dunlop to an open prison, in the interests of public protection, despite a parole panel recommending the plan.

Mind will face a public parole board hearing next month, as production on the new ITV drama is due to begin.

Mrs Ming, who received an MBE in 2007 for her battle for justice, will be played by Sheridan Smith in the new drama on ITV, set to film on Teesside.

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Smith said: "I am so honoured to have been asked to play the role of Ann Ming, a mother so determined to fight for justice for her murdered daughter that she spent 15 years campaigning for the double jeopardy law to be changed.

"She is a truly courageous and remarkable woman to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude."

The case was previously subject of BBC documentary Catching Britain’s Killers: The Crimes That Changed Us in 2019.