To state that the producers of the new series of Broadchurch are irresponsible?

[AWholeLottaNosy]

I say this because their portrayal of how the criminal justice system is innacurate and misleading. A victim or their family CANNOT choose their prosecutor as portrayed in this series, a crime is prosecuted on behalf of the state, not the victim ( or their families ) . They also would not meet with a victim's family or other witnesses to work together to prosecute a crime.

This pisses me off because I have not only worked in the criminal justice system but also for an organisation that supported victims and witnesses and they were frequently under the misapprehension that they would have their own lawyer and were often angry and upset when they realised that that was not the case.

C'mon, ITV, it's not exactly rocket science to do your research and accurately portray how the. CJS works in the UK. This isn't the American system. However I feel that actually they don't care and are just doing this for dramatic purposes. Most people don't understand how the system works and these kinds of programs ( which will be watched by millions ), does us all a disservice...?

[TeenAndTween]

Unfortunately I get the impression that if you know about something it is always annoying when it's not done right on TV.
Can you imagine an ED running like at Holby?
Or a GP service like on Doctors?

My bugbear is how adoption is portrayed.

However even DH and I were shouting at the TV regarding the choosing the prosecutor. (Maybe it was more getting them to step out of retirement and offering to the powers that be to take the case?)

So YANBU.

[MythicalKings]

YABU - Waterloo Road is nothing like "real" schools, that annoys me so I don't watch it.

It's a story and other people enjoy it. I enjoy Broadchurch.

[StarsOfTrackAndField]

Yeah, those bastards at Doctor Who, we have loads of Police Phoneboxes in Edinburgh and NOT ONE OF THEM has allowed me to travel through time and space.

I think they as the producers of Doctor have a duty to show the public exactly what the inside of a police phonebox is like and Doctor Who should consist of nothing but shots of damp and musty interiors of phoneboxes.

It is an (overated) drama not a documentary about the CPS.

[VivaLeBeaver]

Sorry but I think yabu.

I work in a hospital. The majority of patients realise the chances of having three specialist Drs caring only for them and noone else for a week like in House isn't likely to happen. If someone thought it might Id kindly point out they were wrong and move on.

[Bogeyface]

I dont think YABU.

There are a lot of things that are on TV that people misunderstand as being fact. The number of people on MN alone who believe that Statutory Rape exists as a crime in the UK is testament to that. Also a lot of people think that you can "just drop the charges" in cases of assault or DV, when in fact the decision is taken by the police/CPS and you can be compelled to give evidence if required.

I am not saying that dramatic license should never be used, shortening the timescale from incident to verdict into weeks rather than the many many months it can be in real life is one thing. Portraying the UK justice system in a way that bears no resemblance to reality is another.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

I enjoy it too, so I probably ought to stop reading this thread to avoid spoilers. We won't get it in the US until March.

[AWholeLottaNosy]

1 it's not science fiction

2 and yes I did post on the Broadchurch thread as I was so incensed and disappointed.

Is just a bit of a bugbear of mine having worked in this field and seeing how uninformed people are about this and how it affects people.

Will shut up now.

[chipshop]

I absolutely love Broadchurch. But try being a newspaper journalist! Olly would been sacked at the start of the first series, no local paper carries on like that. Let alone the national journo nicking the teddy bear. And Olly's portrayal in the second episode was as legally dodgy as ever. Made me wince. Just not accurate.

[mewkins]

I agree with you. I thought that was very odd as someone with only a vague idea of the CPS.

[emotionsecho]

I understand and feel your pain, OP, it doesn't take much just to make things accurate and simple things like those you have described would not effect the drama in any way. Whenever there is a depiction of my dh's profession on the tv he ends up shouting "who advises these people!". I think it is lazy and insulting not to get procedures right.

[notauniquename]

It's not as bad as the pathetic efforts of CPR often shown on TV shows,
inaccurate portrayal of the legal system leads to disappointment,
inaccurate portrayal of lifesaving techniques could actually cost lives.

[DaygloYellowLady]

Can I tell you my cautionary tale? Many years ago, as newly qualified HPCs me and my (also slightly tipsy) friend got thrown out of a cinema because we were shouting at the screen due to the inaccuracies in a resuscitation scene. The big burly usher was having none of our spirited attempt to educate the rest of the audience on the finer points of advanced life support :)
You have to suspend your disbelief when you watch things otherwise it just becomes lots of grown ups playing at 'lets pretend'.

[Pagwatch]

There are loads of routine inaccuracies in drama that annoy me but it is just entertainment.
I get mightily irritated by the inevitable portrayal of teenagers as sulky, smartarse, emotionally and intellectually infantile dickheads. But every time..

[alwaysstaytoolong]

I've sat in as appropriate adult during many Police interviews from shoplifting to murder.

Nothing at all like TV dramas. Usually 50 seemingly inane questions read out in a monotone by Police officer/detective, often with a 'no comment response'.

No psychological power plays, no good cop/bad cop and certainly no shouting 'we know it was you, you know it was you so tell the truth you piece of shit!!' or whatever you see in dramas.

Wouldn't make for entertaining watching the way it actually happens.

[Cocolepew]

It's dramatic license, it's to fit everything and not be boring and tedious like real life . They only have an hour a week.

[Bogeyface]

Let alone the national journo nicking the teddy bear.

Yeah, or say....hacking the voicemail messages of murder victims would never happen. Oh wait......

Not having a go at you, but since the phone hacking thing, I cant say I would think "oh a journo would never do that..." and I suspect many people feel the same. The few tainting the many I know but still.

[Bogeyface]

I often think how convenient it is that so many murderers are happy to 'fess up after a half an hour interview on TV "Its a fair cop guv". Wouldnt it be so much more helpful if crims would stop selfishly denying what they done and when they done it?

[PrincessTheresaofLiechtenstein]

The thing about something like Broadchurch is it is good because there is an element of realism in the way people interact with each other. Something so glaringly wrong does slightly tarnish it for me.

My profession very occasionally makes it into sitcoms/ comedy routines as a way of getting laughs from people - the reality is very different and I do think it affects people's expectations of me and what I do. Bit irritating.

[HedgehogsDontBite]

I agree with you OP. I'm a Law and Order addict (ASD obsession) but can't watch Law and Order UK without getting the rage. They've taken episodes from the original series and just re-enacted them with British accents. I spend the whole time screaming at the tv 'but it doesn't work like here'.

[AWholeLottaNosy]

Hedgehogs. Thanks for that, I'm glad someone else feels my pain!

I do actually think there is a great drama that could be written based on how the UK CJS actually works...

And just for the record, British Judges do not have gavels!

< gavel >

[spidey66]

I don't watch it, but it irritates me when things are inaccurate on TV. Eastenders is a case in point. The bit of East London where it is set is far more etnically diverse than is portrayed. Also with East London prices the way they are, many market traders, bar staff etc could only afford to live there if they were in council housing. Which moves me nicely to the subject of Dot. A few years back, she moved out of her council house on the Square. FF a couple of years and she moves back into the Square....back into the same council property. Like that's really going to happen, and to give a widow (this was before she married Jim, but unrelaistic even if they were together at the time) a whole HOUSE??? Have the BBC not heard of a council house shortage in London?

Also while not an inaccuracy as such but more an unrealistic happening, Jean gave up her perfectly good council house to go and live with the whole Slater clan. I can understand her spending a lot of time with them, especially as she had mental health problems and they were a supportive family, but giving up a council tenancy to live in what appeared to be a very overcrowded house? Really?

Also, when Stacy was going through a manic episode and needed sectioning....I'm a mental health nurse, and while I thought on the whole it was done well and sensitively she was taken to hospital in a police car. That wouldn't happen, she'd go in an ambulance. Granted when someone needs sectioning, at times, the police MAY be in attendance (particularly if a warrant has to be executed and the door broken in) they do not do the conveying to hospital, that's the Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) and sometimes a doctor or their care coordinator (if that's a different professional from the AMHP responsible. )

I've lived in London all my life and while I'm on nodding and 'hello's' with some of my neighbours, and first name terms with a few (as well as the woman in the corner shop and the pub landlord) I'm not that friendily with the neighbours. Londoners don't generally spend all day and every day in and out of each others lives. And, you know, some of us get the tube to work lol. The corner shop, pub, launderette, garage etc ain't enough to pay all of us!

I know, I know, I shouldn't watch it if it annoys me but I do!!!!

[FreudiansSlipper]

I watched Eastenders tonight for the first time in years shall not be watching it again soon

I have a headache now all that shouting

was never like that when I lived in East London

[bette06]

"Most people don't understand how the system works and these kinds of programs ( which will be watched by millions ), does us all a disservice...?"

I actually disagree that people don't understand how the system works (to the extent that the Broadchurch writers assume!) - and that is what made it so bizarre. I know very little about the legal system but even I know that the family of the murder victim doesn't choose the state's prosecutor and I would guess about 95% of the public would know that too. When they started talking about the family choosing a new lawyer it completely confused me and I started wondering, 'Did the Crown Prosecution Service decide there wasn't enough evidence? Are the family doing some kind of private prosecution - or trying to sue the murderer, or something?'

I think programme makers can get away with inaccuracies that only people within the relevant profession would know - or with speeding things up/cutting out the boring bits etc - but doing something like this is really odd.

[JohnQuig]

Quite clearly you're not a writer, OP.

If every TV show was 100% realistic, it would be really bloody boring (think of the episodes of the Bill made on the cheap!) and let's be honest, nobody other than nitpickers really cares.

I've written for TV and Film and sometimes we just take dramatic licence to make a better story.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

But as a previous poster said, for a program like Broadchurch, there needs to be a sense of realism or you risk taking your audience outside the created world. bette06 makes a good point. If most of the audience would know that a victim's family can't choose the prosecutor, it is jarring and confusing to have that as part of the scenario. That's very different from something like making a witness interrogation more dramatic.