Solicitors attack BBC mini-series for “appalling distortion†of justice system
The Criminal Law Solicitors Association is to write to the BBC to complain about the mini-series Criminal Justice screened last week, Solicitors Journal has learned.
The Criminal Law Solicitors Association is to write to the BBC to complain about the mini-series Criminal Justice screened last week, Solicitors Journal has learned.
Rodney Warren, director of the CLSA, said the drama was an 'appalling distortion' of the criminal justice system. 'My comments apply as much as to the police officers as to the lawyers,' said Warren.
'We have all got a right to be worried about what is happening here. There is a responsibility on the BBC to ensure some accuracy.
'Gross distortions like this do nothing to increase public confidence in the system, and in a way are more damaging than press stories about miscarriages of justice.'
Warren added that the public might well believe that what it was seeing is what actually happens.
The Bar Council has condemned the series for portraying barristers as unprofessional and corrupt.
Ben Coulter, played by Ben Whishaw, is a 21-year-old accused of murdering a young woman he meets one night when he is driving around in his father's cab. High on drink and drugs, they have sex in her flat and he passes out. He wakes up with no idea how she came to be stabbed to death. Attempting to escape, Ben crashes the cab and the police find a kitchen knife in his jacket.
Legal advice arrives at the police station in the form of a cynical and sinister duty solicitor with an eczema problem.
Among his first words of advice are 'forget the truth' and 'winning is everything'. The solicitor goes on to tell Coulter to reply 'no comment' to every question put to him by the police. 'I've been a 'no comment' man all my life and it's never let me down,' adds the solicitor.
Franklin Sinclair, partner at Tuckers in Manchester, said: 'This is an attitude which does not actually exist. You have to take every case on its merits. Telling your client to make no comment could result in him being convicted.'
Sinclair said duty solicitors tended to be very formal at a first interview. 'You don't know the client and you have to establish some rapport. You would never talk to the client for the first time in such a familiar way. It bears no relation to the real world.'
Joy Merriam, chairman of the CLSA, agreed that the first episode was, at times, totally unrealistic. 'Before the trial, he shares a communal cell with the duty solicitor, a transvestite up on a drink driving charge and other random suspects,' she said. 'This would only happen in the US.'
It is understood that the officials at the Ministry of Justice are furious about the series and have circulated an email referring to the Bar Council's complaints and stressing that the criminal justice system is very different from the one portrayed.
A BBC spokesman said: 'Peter Moffat has written a fictional portrayal of the criminal justice system, drawing on his own experiences as a former practising barrister. This is in no way a factual documentary, it is a drama.'