The new series, entitled ‘Crime and Punishment’, is presented by Louise Minchin and Gethin Jones and sees them revisiting landmark cases as well as charting changes in illegal activity, law enforcement and incarceration.
In the first episode of the ten-part series, screened this morning between 9.15 am and 10.00 am, Minchin heads to West Midlands Police headquarters in Birmingham while Gethin Jones visits a local prison.
The Category B local prison has changed significantly over the last 60 years and the series portrays the difficult, demanding roles the staff at the prison exercise every day, along with the challenges and realities of prison life.
Today’s show began with a clip of George Dixon – aka Dixon of Dock Green – from 1956. Minchin describes how beat police officers used to work in those days, and then we move to 55 years on in Walsall. Sergeant Richard Jaques is interviewed and shown talking to people in the local community.
Tip-offs on criminality are more likely to come in via e-mail these days, and Jaques describes the fact that drug dealers can be as young as ten years of age.
Suspects in custody
Gethin Jones then looks at what happens to a suspect when taken into custody. On any one day there are more than 87,000 people in our prisons, and Jones speaks with Inspector Brian Carmicheal, a smart and intelligent officer at Birmingham Central Police Station.
Carmichael describes being bitten, spat at and verbally abused by prisoners. It just shows you one element of the hardship our police officers have to endure in the name of enforcing law and order.
Minchin then talks about the Royal Protection Department, referring to a “huge operation” set up in 1983 and which now costs GB pound 30 million per annum to run by 400 officers.
Former protection officer Jim Beaton recalls 1973 and his duty to safeguard the well-being of Princess Anne and her new husband Captain Mark Phillips.
One night, returning from a function in the West End, the Royal car was cut-up by a white car in The Mall. Shots were fired… Beaton put himself in-between the Royal couple and their assailant, Ian Ball.
Beaton had been shot three times but, thankfully, survived. Ball was charged with the attempted murder of Beaton and the fact that he had been planning to kidnap Princess Anne. Beaton was awarded the George Cross for his bravery and retired in 1992.
Needless to say, Royal protection changed immeasurably from that day forward and, more recently, following a man breaking into the Queen’s bedroom at Buckingham Palace in 1983.
Being booked in to prison
Following this segment, we see Gethin Jones – who by now has been ‘sent down’ – being booked in to Bristol Prison. Jones is visibly disturbed by the whole procedure.
This looks like being a great series. Not entirely sure why it’s running on a Monday morning, which is hardly prime time viewing, but at least you can watch it on iPlayer.
Speaking of which, here’s the link to Episode One.
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