Last updated 09:20, Saturday, 05 July 2008

THE worst part of Criminal Justice (BBC1, Monday to Friday) was that it had to come to an end.

Criminal Justice: Ben Whishaw, left, and Pete Postlethwaite

On so many levels this tense film fascinated, enthralled, intrigued and kept bums perched on edges of sofas. This was BBC drama of the old school. The quality school we used to know and love.

Thrown into a police cell for a murder that he almost certainly didn't commit, young Ben Coulter (Ben Whishaw) was pitifully used, abused, manipulated and tainted all the way through his arrest, remand and pre-trial custody period.

The depressing view of our criminal justice system – and the nightmare endured by those innocents caught up in it – was no accident or coincidence. If it hadn’t been formulated for promoters of “jails are too soft” brigades, it should have been.

Ben’s self-pity over wrongful murder accusation quickly shifted, by necessity, to self-preservation once on remand.

He, having been let down and tormented by everyone from his lawyers to the prison bullies in cahoots with warders, seemed to have no bolt hole of safety. None of this deeply engrossing serial was in the least bit pretty.

Criminal Justice was written by Peter Moffat, who before his screenwriting career (North Square, Cambridge Spies) was a barrister. It’s hardly surprising that his circle of lawyer friends have been complaining bitterly that their profession has been shown in a less than flattering light.

Not surprising because it’s true. The lawyers in Criminal Justice were viciously self-seeking, with little or no interest in the needs of their clients. In fact, they made some of the prisoners look like disciples of Mother Teresa.

A great week of drama. Would it be too greedy to ask for more?