While the plotline of the second series remains a closely guarded secret, The Area News has learned it will centre on events surrounding the 1977 murder of Don Mackay.

A member of the show’s production crew let slip when she contacted the newspaper last week, seeking permission to use an original The Area News front page in the program.

“The series is a prequel to the last series and will certainly involve the disappearance of Donald Mackay and the movements of Robert Trimbole,” she said.

“It will cover a 10-year span up to the mid-80s.”

She said producers would not be filming in Griffith, instead doing “cheats” in a Sydney studio.

The show is currently in pre-production and is expected to screen late next year.

The first series, which focused on the 1995 to 2004 Melbourne gangland war, was a runaway ratings hit for Channel 9 and was lauded as a landmark piece of Australian drama.

The news comes as a further blow for Griffith, with the recent Black Friday drug arrests sparking renewed interest in the city’s links to organised crime.

Perry Howard, a close friend of Don Mackay’s and a staunch defender of Griffith, said he was “shocked” to hear Griffith’s dark past would again be immortalised in celluloid.

“Haven’t they ground poor old Griffith into the dirt enough already?” Mr Howard said.

“It’s all about money in the end. If they can make a bob out of it, they’ll do it at our expense.”

Mayor Mike Neville said while the dramatisation of the events surrounding Mr Mackay’s murder could only further damage the city, the real victims were the Mackay family themselves.

“Given what the Mackay family have been through, especially with some of the recent insinuations, it’s certainly not a good thing for them,” Cr Neville said.

“This will only add fuel to the fire.

“Everything that Don Mackay stood for is what we should be focusing on and what we are working at in Griffith, trying to build better citizens.

“Hopefully our young people, many of who don’t know much about what happened in the past, can focus on the message that it’s always worth standing up for things that are right, even if there is sometimes a cost.”