First published on Sat 1 May 2021 05.00 EDT
As Line of Duty completes its sixth and possibly final series, just how close to reality was it?
As it happens, the end of the run coincides with the publication of Rot at the Core, an in-depth investigation into the life and times of one of Britainâs most spectacularly corrupt police officers, whose career ended in disgrace before his death in a prison cell.
The authors are a former detective superintendent, Graham Satchwell, who investigated corruption in his own force, and Winston Trew, a victim of the bent officer, whose wrongful conviction from nearly 50 years ago was only recently overturned.
BBC News
By Kevin Peachey
Published
image copyrightPA Media/Jo Hamilton/BBC
image captionSeema Misra, Jo Hamilton, and Janet Skinner (left to right) are fighting to clear their names
A group of 42 sub-postmasters and postmistresses will learn later whether convictions for stealing money will be quashed amid a Post Office IT scandal.
They were convicted, with some imprisoned, after the Post Office installed the Horizon computer system in branches.
The system was flawed and postmasters and postmistresses have spent years trying to clear their names.
Judges at the Court of Appeal will deliver their ruling later.
Following the convictions - including theft, fraud and false accounting - some former postmasters went to prison, were shunned by their communities and struggled to secure work.
BBC News
Published
image captionMohammed Rasul said it was a massive relief to be cleared of his conviction
A postmaster who was one of the victims of the UK s most widespread miscarriage of justice has told how his conviction meant he missed saying goodbye to his dying father.
A total of 736 workers were prosecuted based on information from a flawed computer system. I can t put into words what I have gone through, Mr Rasul said.
Mr Rasul had worked for the Post Office for almost 20 years when he was suspended in 2005.
He was prosecuted two years later and given an electronic GPS tag and a curfew.
Government’s refusal of freedom of information request about Post Office scandal ‘deeply concerning’
MP condemns department’s ‘bizarre’ rejection of freedom of information request linked to Post Office IT scandal
Share this item with your network: By Published: 10 Mar 2021 10:01
The government has refused a freedom of information (FOI) request for copies of emails sent between the former Post Office CEO and the government department responsible for the organisation.
The request was made by an individual with an interest in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, which saw subpostmasters wrongly punished by the Post Office for unexplained financial losses.
The request for all correspondence sent between former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), then BIS, between 6 June 2013 and 31 December 2013 was rejected on the grounds that the cost of providing the material would exceed the maximum permitted.
Prime minister yet to respond to serious subpostmaster concerns over Horizon IT scandal inquiry
Subpostmaster victims who have spent millions bringing the Post Office IT scandal to light have received no reply to their concerns from Boris Johnson
Share this item with your network: By Published: 09 Mar 2021 10:21
Prime minister Boris Johnson has not responded to two letters from subpostmasters expressing their concerns over the government-instigated inquiry into what has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history.
The first letter, sent at the beginning of February, outlined the concerns of the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA) over a government inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal and the second letter, sent on 22 February, said there was new evidence of a potentially “widespread conspiracy to pervert the course of justice”.