Ellie Nesler takes drastic action when her son is abused by his summer camp counsellor and she discovers that the man has already escaped justice for the same crime. She commits murder – and now she’s the one on trial.

Murderer? Vigilante? Or just a devoted and desperate mother, driven to the brink of insanity by the powerlessness of the law?

The story of Ellie Nesler raises many complex questions and she provoked a national debate in the US about the nature of justice when she walked into a Californian courtroom on 2 April 1993 and shot twice-convicted child-molester Daniel Driver five times in the head as he faced multiple child-molestation charges, including one relating to Nesler’s own young son.

JUDGMENT DAY: The Ellie Nesler Story tracks the complex sequence of events both leading up to and subsequent to the killing – how Driver was deemed fit to work with children despite his paedophile tendencies, how he allegedly abused Ellie’s son repeatedly, the trauma caused to children involved in abuse cases once they reach the courts, and how Ellie, a devout Christian, felt driven to drastic action through her fear that Driver would escape justice and destroy the lives of other children.