Unforgivable is the latest unflinching Jimmy McGovern drama to tackle one of life’s most uncomfortable issues – and the ending certainly didn’t tie everything up in a neat bow. 

Of course, the subject matter isn’t one that has any easy answers or fixes. Paedophilia, and sexual abuse of a minor, remains one of the most heinous crimes on earth.

The BBC Two feature film, set and filmed in Liverpool, centred around the Mitchell family who were dealing with the devastating aftermath of sexual abuse. Horrifyingly, the abuse had been carried out on a 12-year-old by the schoolboy’s own uncle.

The fictional drama raised difficult questions, while the ending allowed some redemption for the main characters… Here’s the ending of Unforgivable explained.

***Warning: spoilers from the Unforgivable ending ahead and content of an explicit nature***

Unforgivable ending explained: What happened in Jimmy McGovern drama?

The BBC Two film introduced Bobby Mitchell, a man coming to the end of his prison sentence. Having served his time – four years of an eight-year term – he was out on licence, having to follow certain instructions to stay a free man.

His crime? The sexual abuse of a minor – his own nephew. As a result of the crime, he’d been cast out by his family. All except his mum, who continued to visit him in jail until she became very ill. In the first few minutes of the drama, Joe and Anna’s mum died. But he was not welcome at the funeral.

After his subsequent release, Joe (portrayed brilliantly by Bobby Schofield in the Unforgivable cast) was accepted for a place at St Maura’s, an institution which offered him a home and rehabilitation after his release.

There he met former nun Katherine, who encouraged him to seek a different type of therapy to come to terms with his actions. With the unwavering support of Katherine (Anna Maxwell Martin), Joe took part in therapy sessions in the hope of understanding what led him to commit the abuse.

Simultaneously, his sister Anna was dealing with the enormous impact that Joe’s crime had had on her family – her son Peter, and her father. Of course, understandably, her focus was on youngest son Tom – the subject of the abuse.

What is Moving Light Therapy?

In Jimmy McGovern’s Unforgivable, Joe undertook Moving Light Therapy. Looking at a moving light during therapy is a technique used in Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. This form of therapy is primarily used to help process traumatic memories.

It’s described as “a type of bilateral stimulation”. The therapist directs eye movements, sounds, or tactile sensations to help the client process difficult memories and reduce their emotional impact.

In this case, Joe accessed his own memories of the sexual abuse he also suffered as a child.

While EMDR is well-known for treating PTSD, it can also be used for other mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, and phobias.

Unforgivable ending explained: What did Joe do?

Joe was convicted of sexually abusing his 12-year-old nephew Tom. He swore it was the first and last time he had done something so horrific.

He admitted he was sexually attracted to young boys, and asked Katherine if she could “fix” him. Full of repentance, he regularly called himself a piece of [bleep].

Talking to Katherine during a therapy session, he described the abuse. Joe said: “I like making things. And Tom is the same. He’s got the same gene. I’d been going around there every Sunday. We’d have a late breakfast, then go and wash up. Me and Tom would go into the yard and do a bit of welding or something.

“This day, I wanted to show him some good stuff on the internet, so we stayed in the room. It was warm, and he had a t’shirt on and shorts. He was all arms and legs, and not an ounce of fat on him. He was beautiful.”

In uncomfortable scenes, Joe continued: “I’d been touching him for weeks. I started off with a little pat on the knee. I went a bit further up each time, and he didn’t say nothing. So I thought, this is the day. I touched his cock. And he went berserk.”

Joe explained how Joe’s mum and dad came into the room. Having worked out what had happened, Joe’s dad started hitting him. Joe felt like he should take it, so he did.

Later, Joe admitted he “thought Tom would like it”. He said: “I thought he’d like it, because I liked it. But I saw horror on his face.”

‘I feel ashamed’

Throughout the film, Joe’s own horror at what he’d done made him more of a sympathetic character than his crime implied. He wanted to find the root of the problem and weed it out.

He told Katherine: “I do feel ashamed of what I did to Tom and his parents. I feel more ashamed of what I did to my mum.”

Of course, viewers saw that Joe had entered an “exclusion zone” to visit his mum’s grave. He believed he was partly to blame for her death.

Unforgivable ending explained: What does ‘excluded’ mean?

Of course, the word excluded means to prevent someone from entering a place or taking part in an activity. In Joe’s case, it meant he was banned from entering certain areas.

Joe was not allowed to go near Tom’s house, school, or any members of his family – which obviously included Joe’s own dad Brian, and sister Anna.

As a condition of his parole, Joe had to stay away from an exclusion zone, set out by his parole officer. The zone was “anywhere within the zone of the 26 bus route”. That was a “no go area” for Joe.

Joe was also excluded from visiting his mum’s grave, but he broke the rules to lay flowers there.

Was Joe abused himself? Was he a victim too?

During his therapy with Katherine and later his Moving Light Therapy, Joe revealed he’d also been abused when he was 12 – exactly the same age as Tom was when Joe abused him. Like Tom, Joe had been abused by a older man he’d looked up to.

He confessed: “I was touched up when I was 12. I’ve never told anyone. In prison, it’s about what you’ve done, not what’s been done to you.”

Joe went on: “I used to play footie when I was a kid. One day I got sent off and I was alone in the changing rooms. Our manager came in and sat next to me and started talking and touching me, rubbing me, and I came. I was only 12, but I came.”

He later admitted it was the first time he’d ever ejaculated. Of course, because Joe was just a child, his emotions were tied up with the fact he’d been sent off the pitch. He said: “My manager was touching me, so he must still like me.”

Joe blamed himself for letting the team down. He thought he deserved it. While Joe was a victim of abuse himself, of course that didn’t excuse his own offences. Katherine told Joe that some sexual abuse victims go on to abuse others.

Who abused Joe? Was Paul Patterson convicted?

Joe revealed he’d been abused by his football coach, who was actually a family friend of the Mitchells – Paul Patterson. Joe eventually confronted Paul, who denied everything.

However, Joe knew of another young boy who’d been touched inappropriately by the coach. Sammy McVeigh, who still lived locally.

Together, the pair went to the police. Nine months later, we saw Paul Patterson in the dock accused with sexually assaulting a child under 13. He denied the offence right up until the very end, and even blamed Joe and Sammy for making it up.

He asked the court who they should believe – the word of a grandfather with no convictions? Or a man already found guilty of a sexual assault. The jury found Paul not guilty, leaving Joe in tears.

However, if any redemption was to be found, it came at the hands of Joe’s dad Brian. After the court proceedings – which all of Joe’s family attended – Brian couldn’t bear to see his son so dejected.

He walked up to his son outside the courtroom and enfolded him in a hug, before asking “fancy a pint?” So not quite a happy ending. There could be none here, with these themes. But a step in the right direction.

What happened to Tom in the Unforgivable ending?

At the beginning of the film, abuse victim Tom was pretty much non-verbal as a response to his trauma. In early scenes, his mum Anna was called to his school after he’d attacked another boy at school and left him with a suspected broken jaw.

As the school tried to coerce Anna to take him out of the school, she fought his case. After all, he’d been failed by the system who didn’t have enough measures in place to help him after the abuse. Meanwhile Joe had been receiving lots of therapy in jail…

Ultimately, Tom blamed himself for not speaking up sooner about his uncle’s sly attempts to touch him. But, he said, his uncle “didn’t look like a perv”.

After a near-miss suicide attempt, Tom finally received the help he needed. He was rushed to the top of the waiting list for the mental health bureau. At the end of the film, he was speaking again and even able to feel some sympathy for his uncle after his court case against his own abuser. When Joe’s abuser Paul Patterson was found not guilty, Tom said to his grandad: “It’s not fair.”

Impact of sexual abuse was like a ‘hand grenade going off in the family’

The drama examined the “extensive ripple effect of abuse from multiple perspectives” and how those involved can try to move forwards in the midst of the devastation.

Jimmy McGovern described the sexual abuse itself as “like a hand grenade going off in the family – everybody gets shattered with shrapnel”.

We saw Anna coming to terms with losing her brother, and feeling like a “lousy mother” to her kids. She was estranged from her husband Peter, something that wasn’t explained, but we assumed was a result of the abuse.

Victim Tom was left without a voice, quite literally. Acting out in school, and crying out for help. He’d felt powerless, and like Joe after his own sexual abuse – blamed himself for not speaking up.

Joe and Anna’s dad Brian had lost his son. And he blamed Joe for the death of his wife. He told his son: “You broke it, her heart.”

Peter Jnr had lost his uncle, who he’d loved. He was also crying out for help in his own way – by getting into trouble with the police. He told his mum: “No one exists to you apart from Tom.”

Meanwhile, Tom’s dad Peter Snr was separated from his wife, and unable to see his sons whenever he wanted.

Why is breast cancer called the nun’s disease?

In the Unforgivable ending, Katherine continued to battle breast cancer, which she described as the “nun’s disease”. This is because of the high number of nuns affected by it.

Now considered an outdated term, ‘nun’s disease’ previously referred to the higher incidence of breast cancer among nuns compared to women who have had children.

This is thought to be because nuns – who are celibate – don’t experience the “protective effects of pregnancy and breastfeeding on breast cancer risk”.

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Unforgivable will air at 9pm on BBC Two on Thursday, July 24, 2025, and from 6am that day on BBC iPlayer.