The start of a four-week season examining concerns over the workings of the criminal justice system. Through drama, documentaries, features and entertainment, and with a supporting run of feature films, the season takes a broad look at crime and why people commit it, and attempts to discover whether the British legal system delivers justice and if punishment is effective.
Executive producer Elizabeth Clough
8.20pm Confessions In this introductory programme seven people, from a law lord to a police officer, describe how they have seen the criminal justice system fail. Producer Kate Barker
8.30pm Inside the Wig
Who are the men and women with the power to deprive us of our liberty? For the first time a film-maker has been allowed to record the selection and training of judges. The film follows the progress of five new assistant recorders (the most junior rank of judge) through their four-day training course as they grapple with the complexities of sentencing and running a court and learn to "think like a judge".
An Amy Hardie production for BBCtv
9.15pm
Rumpole of the Bailey
Before he became the hero of ITV's long-running courtroom drama, Horace Rumpole made his first television appearance in a BBC1 Play for Today in 1975. John Mortimer reflects on his most famous creation, the crotchety but loveable barrister, and introduces a screening of that ground-breaking drama. Defending a teenager against a seemingly cast-iron charge of attempted murder, Rumpole finds he is less cynical and more involved than he likes to admit.
Producer Irene Shubik
Director John Gorrie
10.20pm-12.10am The Accused
Graphic and disturbing legal drama starring
Jodie Foster , Kelly McGillis Foster gives an Oscar-winning performance as a woman raped by three men in her local bar;
McGillis is the prosecutor who comes to realise that the woman's provocative behaviour should not be allowed to prejudice the case.
Director Jonathan Kaplan
SEE FILMS pages 49-58