Rough Justice (British TV programme)

Rough Justice was a BBC television programme that investigated alleged miscarriages of justice, airing from 1982 to 2007. It helped overturn the convictions of 18 people across 13 separate cases. The programme is credited with playing a part in the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1997. It was cancelled in 2007 due to budget cuts, which drew criticism from the media.

Origins

The programme was conceived and produced by investigative journalist Peter Hill in 1979. He was inspired by Ludovic Kennedy’s earlier television work in this area and by the efforts of Tom Sargant at the reform group JUSTICE. In 1992, Hill noted that at the time, other producers, such as John Willis at Yorkshire Television and Ray Fitzwater at Granada, were also making important programmes about mistakes made before cases went to trial, pointing to a legacy of police misconduct from the 1970s.

During this period, UK criminal justice procedure was uncodified. Until the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and the Crown Prosecution Service (1986) were introduced, the police decided what evidence to disclose. Later reporter David Jessel acknowledged that PACE likely reduced police misconduct, but added that post-PACE case papers showed similar problems in new forms, such as suspects confessing in police cars before reaching PACE-protected stations, and duty solicitors facing limited cooperation at some stations.

Format

Each episode focused on a single case where a miscarriage of justice was alleged. The first, The Case of the Handful of Hair, aired on BBC1 on 7 April 1982 and examined a 1976 murder. It attracted 11 million viewers. In 1992, the original team took the format to Channel 4 as Trial and Error, which ran until 2000, while Rough Justice continued with new staff.

Cancellation

The BBC cancelled the programme in November 2007 as a cost-cutting measure. Marcel Berlins, writing in The Guardian, argued that the programme’s careful investigations often revealed basic flaws in the crime investigation system, police incompetence, and shortcomings in forensic science. He believed the high financial cost of this effort led the BBC to decide it did not meet its value-for-money criteria, despite being a perfect example of public service broadcasting.