Sheridan Smith<\/a> was unable to contain her emotions as she was interviewed on This Morning with the inspirational mother she portrays in the new ITV<\/a> drama I Fought The Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Royle Family actress, 44, appeared visibly close to\u00a0Teesside mum Ann Ming, whose tireless campaigning saw the law changed and her daughter Julie’s murderer brought to justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n The inspirational mum’s 15-year campaign to change the\u00a0Double Jeopardy Law, which prevented her daughter’s killer, who was initially acquitted of the offence, from being retried.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ann told hosts Rylan Clarke and Sian Welby\u00a0that she couldn’t imagine anyone but Sheridan stepping into her shoes to tell the story.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘I came on set twice, and she didn’t know I was there,’ Ann said, surprising Sheridan.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘And I watched her, playing me, in one of the difficult scenes – when we told Kevin the truth. It was like watching me.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Sheridan Smith was unable to contain her emotions as she was interviewed on This Morning with the inspirational mother she portrays in the new ITV drama I Fought The Law<\/p>\n \u00a0The Royle Family actress, 44, appeared visibly close to Teesside mum Ann Ming, whose tireless campaigning saw the law changed and her daughter’s murderer brought to justice<\/p>\n This prompted Sheridan herself to well up and say:\u00a0‘All I wanted was Ann to be proud.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Ann continued: ‘I don’t think they could have got another actress to do it as well. She takes on a role and becomes that person.’\u00a0<\/p>\n The brave mother was heavily involved in the dramatisation of her story and served as a consultant on the four-part series.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ann admitted that she had her reservations about the series when ITV first made contact with her.\u00a0<\/p>\n The show, written by Jamie Crichton, is notably based on Ann’s book ‘For The Love Of Julie’.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ann said: ‘I had a team of lawyers backing me all the way. They didn’t think it was a one man band.<\/p>\n ‘And then they said they were thinking about approaching Sheridan Smith, and I’ve watched everything she’s ever been in.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘I thought they couldn’t get anyone better to play me.’\u00a0<\/p>\n Ann (L) admitted that she had her reservations about the series when ITV first made contact with her<\/p>\n The show, written by Jamie Crichton, is notably based on Ann’s book about her fight to bring her daughter’s murder to justice – ‘For The Love of Julie’<\/p>\n As the show is based on a real-life story, it will be accompanied by a documentary about Anne herself,\u00a0I Fought The Law: The Ann Ming Story.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ann’s daughter Julie tragically died when she was just 22 in 1989 after being strangled and sexually assaulted by\u00a0William Dunlop.<\/p>\n He proceeded to hide her remains behind a bath panel and was acquitted of the crime twice in the 1990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, in 2006, he was finally brought to justice thanks to Ann’s tireless determination.\u00a0<\/p>\n While William has applied for parole since being jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years, his request was blocked by the Secretary of State in March.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u00a0Fought The Law is scheduled to premiere on August 31 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.<\/p>\n Share or comment on this article:![\"Sheridan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101427849-15021287-image-a-16_1755780653326.jpg\")
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\n Sheridan Smith breaks down in tears live on This Morning – as Rylan scrambles to grab tissues and comfort her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.co.uk\u00a0 By EMMA GUINNESS Published: 09:40 EDT, 21 August 2025 | Updated:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,97,42049,96,347,15127,1471,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-83286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-daytime-tv","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-itv","13":"tag-sheridan-smith","14":"tag-this-morning","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}