Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter, The White Lotus) is set to star as Dr Jack Hawkins, and Jim Loach (Lockerbie, Unchosen) is set to direct a scripted adaptation of Maternity Broken Trust, the RTS Television Journalism Award-winning VICE Studios documentary that investigated alleged failures in maternity care at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH).
First documented in VICE Studios’ Maternity Broken Trust, the story followed families affected by alleged failures in maternity care at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, including Dr Jack Hawkins and Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn in 2016. Their years-long campaign for answers contributed to what became the largest maternity review in UK history. Drawing on the 2024 documentary, Cuba Pictures has now secured the rights to adapt the story for television.
Jason Isaacs commented, “What drew me to this project was its sheer scale: this goes far beyond one family or one hospital. It’s about what happens when institutions fail, and the extraordinary people who refuse to stop asking difficult questions and demand justice. With Cuba Pictures building on the remarkable work of the original documentary, I wanted to be part of telling the next chapter of this story.”
Jim Loach said: “Jack and Sarah – alongside all the families who’ve suffered – have an extraordinary and incredibly important story to tell. It asks searching questions of institutions we need to trust and believe in. Drama can help bring injustice and uncomfortable truths into the daylight, and that’s our responsibility.”
Dixie Linder, President of Cuba Pictures, said: “Maternity Broken Trust told this story with such care and integrity. It introduced audiences to the families whose determination helped expose one of the UK’s biggest maternity scandals. Our ambition is to build on that work with a scripted adaptation that honours the bravery of the families and their determination to uncover the truth.”
Laura Warner, Director of Maternity: Broken Trust and Executive Producer on the series, added: “Having made the documentary with Jack, Sarah and the other families affected, I realised there was a much bigger story to tell. The emotional and psychological toll of spending a decade fighting to be heard is almost impossible to comprehend. A scripted adaptation gives us the space to explore what these families have endured and why their story must never be forgotten.”
Jack Hawkins and Sarah Hawkins said, “We have been fighting for justice for over 10 years now – since the death of our daughter Harriet. We are victims. This was never our job, there are people whose job it is to ensure that mothers and babies make it out of the maternity unit alive and well. This is a national scandal that played out in Nottingham. A drama can get under the skin of this story in a way that current affairs and news cannot. We have often said ‘if you wrote this as a drama, viewers would say ‘nope, too far fetched, this isn’t reality’. Well, watch this”
The announcement follows the recent publication of the findings from the landmark Nottingham maternity review, led by maternity expert Donna Ockenden. The review found that more than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care over a 13-year period, bringing renewed national attention to long-standing concerns about maternity services at the Trust.
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