Criminal Justice (British TV series)

Series one

The first series was broadcast nightly from 30 June to 4 July 2008 on BBC One. Ben Coulter, played by Ben Whishaw, takes his parents' black cab out for the night. A young woman gets into the cab at a traffic light and insists on going to the seaside. There she offers Ben ecstasy, which he accepts.

The pair go back to her house, and after sleeping together, Ben awakes downstairs to see a knife on the table. He goes upstairs and finds the girl dead with a stab wound to the chest. Police stop Ben after he crashes the taxi in shock. A neighbour's description matches Ben, who had broken into the girl's house to wipe his DNA.

A knife is found in his pocket, and he is arrested on suspicion of murder, charged, and refused bail. In prison, Ben seeks protection from a feared jailbird named Milroy after being beaten up. In return for protection, Ben must smuggle an item past a guard. He re-employs his former lawyer, and Vineeta Rishi appears as Frances Kapoor, his new barrister.

Ben shares a cell mostly with Hooch, a prison Listener, whose advice and support are marred by his own limitations. Hooch ultimately makes a sacrifice to open the path to Ben's release and his own absolution. The cast also includes Pete Postlethwaite, Con O'Neill, Lindsay Duncan, David Westhead, Ruth Negga, and Bill Paterson.

Series two

The second series of this BBC drama aired nightly from 5 to 9 October 2009 as part of the autumn schedule. It stars Maxine Peake as Juliet Miller, a housewife who stabs her abusive husband. Matthew Macfadyen plays Joe, a successful barrister married to Juliet. The couple have a 13-year-old daughter, Ella, played by Alice Sykes.

The supporting cast includes Sophie Okonedo, Denis Lawson, Steven MacKintosh, Eddie Marsan, Zoe Telford, and Kate Hardie. The story begins with Juliet preparing for Joe’s return from work. He arrives with flowers, but both his wife and daughter appear nervous. That night, Juliet stabs Joe.

She calls emergency services but then leaves the house. Ella finds her father seriously injured and removes the knife, despite being told not to. Joe is taken to hospital, and Ella is brought to a police station. Juliet arrives at the hospital, where Joe is in intensive care, and is arrested.

While in custody, she behaves oddly, prompting her solicitor to question her mental state. In a second interview without her solicitor present, she admits to the stabbing. Bail is denied over concerns she might flee or contact Joe or Ella. Ella is placed in emergency care and later moves in with a friend’s family, suffering nightmares.

A prison visit with Juliet only makes things worse because Juliet shows no remorse. Her legal team tries to get her to discuss her marriage, asking if she was raped, which she was not, and revealing she is pregnant. Only after giving birth to a second daughter, amid fears of being separated from the child, does Juliet finally open up about her marriage. Joe’s condition deteriorates, and he dies.

Juliet is charged with murder but pleads not guilty on grounds of provocation. She is found not guilty after revealing the domestic abuse she endured, but she pleads guilty to manslaughter. Peter Moffat wrote the series, Steve Lightfoot produced it, Yann Demange directed the first three episodes, and Marc Jobst directed the final two.

International adaptations

An eight-episode HBO miniseries debuted on 10 July 2016, with John Turturro as New York City lawyer John Stone and Riz Ahmed as the Pakistani-American murder suspect. An Indian Hindi-language series titled Criminal Justice was released on Hotstar Specials on 5 April 2019, directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia and Vishal Furia, starring Jackie Shroff, Pankaj Tripathi, Vikrant Massey, Anupriya Goenka, and Mita Vashist. A South Korean adaptation titled One Ordinary Day premiered on Coupang Play on 27 November 2021, co-produced by Studio M, Chorokbaem Media, and Gold Medalist, starring Kim Soo-hyun and Cha Seung-won. A French adaptation titled Une Si Longue Nuit, starring Mathilde Seigner and Jean-Pierre Darroussin, was released on Salto on 20 December 2021, with later broadcasts on La Une in Belgium and TF1 in France.