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...?

I don't watch Broad church but you have my sympathy. I started a reasonably long thread on similar lines about a novel, the name of which I can't remember.

The entire plot was predicated on something that just does not happen in the criminal justice system.

It really irritates me when this happens. A recent one was a ghost story which relied on the plot line that a will found 150 years after a death would mean that a house could be inherited by someone now.

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

That one is just so annoying.