CRIMINAL JUSTICE. BBC, UK. Second series: 5 through 9 October 2009.

Maxine Peake, Denis Lawson, Sophie Okonedo, Steven Mackintosh, Kate Hardie, Nadine Marshall, Matthew Macfadyen, Zoe Telford. Written by Peter Moffat; director: Yann Demange.

   This was a highly touted five part series (one hour each, no adverts) shown over five successive nights. It was actually the second under this title, but as I seemed to be the only person who didn’t enjoy last year’s opener, I was fearing the worst.

   Actually this story of an oppressed wife who stabs her husband but then refuses to talk about it had some very good scenes and seemed to me to be on a different level that last year’s story.

   We saw the progress of the wife through the flawed justice system both through the courts and on remand in the prison system. At times slow moving, and implausible in places, there were enough moving moments to make this worth persevering with.