On an April evening in New York three decades ago, around 30 black teenagers headed into Central Park for several hours of unchecked mayhem.
Pedestrians and cyclists were mugged and beaten, two men bludgeoned unconscious — and one young investment banker out jogging dragged into woods, raped and savagely beaten before being left for dead.
Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old white woman, had her skull smashed in and lost so much blood that her survival after 12 days in a coma was almost miraculous.
The crime became internationally notorious overnight, summing up for many how far a then crime-ravaged New York had sunk.
Antron McCray (left) and Korey Wise (right) were among the five teenagers convicted of the rape of 28-year-old Trisha Meili in New York
Yusef Salaamn (left) and Kevin Richardson (right) were victims of corrupt, brutal and racist police and prosecutors
Raymond Santana was one of the teenagers convicted of the rape and other crimes that night
The city's mayor Ed Koch called it the 'crime of the century' and compared it to the feral young gang portrayed in the novel A Clockwork Orange.
A New York property tycoon named Donald Trump took out full-page newspaper adverts calling for the restitution of the death penalty. 'You better believe I hate these people,' he said on TV.
Four black and one Latino teenagers were convicted of the rape and other crimes that night, sending shivers down the spines of fellow New Yorkers in their description to police of their behaviour in the park as a 'wilding'.
Low-crime and increasingly gentrified, New York is now a very different city to that of 1989, but racial tensions are still never far from the surface.
For the case of the Central Park Five has once again sparked a huge row that has laid bare deep divisions over what happened that night. The touchpaper has been lit this time by When They See Us, an emotive dramatisation of the case.
Made for online broadcaster Netflix, the four-part mini-series was directed by acclaimed African-American filmmaker, Ava DuVernay.
In her black-and-white telling, the five are innocent victims of corrupt, brutal and racist police and prosecutors. They are cajoled and tricked into making false confessions implicating each other, which they later retract, while prosecution lawyers ignore evidence that indicates their innocence of the rape.
Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old white woman, has been jogging through Cnetral Park in New York when she was attacked. (Stock image)
A four-part mini-series When They See Us (pictured), directed by acclaimed African-American filmmaker Ava DuVernay, retells the events that unfolded following the attack
There was no physical evidence linking the five — two aged 14, two 15, and the fifth 16 — to the rape, the victim could remember nothing clearly and none of the others attacked that night identified any of the five.
Prosecutors relied on video-taped confessions, which proved enough for jurors in a city aghast at the crime.
The drama ends on a jubilant note in 2002 when they were sensationally cleared after a serial rapist claimed he had raped the jogger alone.
Matias Reyes, who was already serving a life sentence for other crimes, provided DNA that matched samples taken from and near the victim.
The five, who had by then served between six and 13 years behind bars, sued the city for malicious prosecution and racial discrimination.
There had not been any physical evidence linking the five — two aged 14, two 15, and the fifth 16 — to the rape. Pictured: Drama When They See Us
In 2014, they were awarded $45 million compensation although the city never apologised and admitted no wrongdoing by investigators.
In the series, DuVernay has focused her anger in particular on Linda Fairstein, a blonde prosecutor who oversaw the case against the five.
She comes across as a bigoted monster, describing the accused as 'little animals' and declaring in the first episode: 'Every black male who was in the park last night is a suspect. I need all of them.'
When another prosecutor doubts the evidence against the five, Fairstein bluntly warns her: 'It's too late. The whole country is watching.'
Until now, Ms Fairstein has been a heroine for New York liberals as a passionate champion of women victims in a male-dominated legal world.
In 1989, she was running a pioneering sex crimes unit that inspired the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She went on to become a successful novelist writing legal whodunnits.
Following a wrongful conviction, they were awarded $45 million compensation in 2014. Pictured: Netflix drama When They See Us
Or at least she did until her publishers, Dutton in the U.S. and Little Brown in the UK, dropped her after the Netflix series set off a fierce backlash and a Twitter campaign called #CancelLindaFairstein.
Her literary agents also dispensed with her, while her old university and a charity for victims of abuse forced her to resign from their boards.
The series — currently the most popular programme on Netflix in the U.S. — claimed a second scalp when Elizabeth Lederer, another prosecutor in the case, was forced to step down as a teacher at
