The End of Law

The End of Law was shown on Wednesday 25 April 2001, two years after the last regular series, and it was the last time John Thaw played James Kavanagh. Thaw announced in June that year that he was being treated for cancer of the oesophagus, and he died on 21 February 2002, aged 60. In the meantime he took roles in two more television productions, The Glass and Hidden Treasure.

The special begins with a surprise visit. Kavanagh is sitting as a Recorder at Southwark Crown Court. During a shoplifting trial, Lord Cranston, played by Nicholas Le Prevost, pops in for a conversation and asks whether he would like to become a judge. TVDB calls it a once-in-a-lifetime chance, with strings attached. Kavanagh asks Peter Foxcott and his daughter for advice.

Meanwhile Jeremy Aldermarten is prosecuting Harry Hatton for the murder of Katya Zimanyi, a Hungarian escort who died in the Mortimer Hotel. Robert Pickavance plays Hatton and Rachel Woolrich plays Katya. The defendant's lawyer is Miss Swithen, a solicitor advocate, played by Samantha Bond. She loses the trial, and then asks Kavanagh for help with the appeal, but passes out after a diabetic attack.

Lord Cranston asks Kavanagh not to get too involved, so, of course, he takes on the appeal. What looked like a miscarriage of justice begins to seem like a state cover-up that involves the intelligence community.

Nancy Banks-Smith, reviewing the film in the Guardian the next day, gave more of the plot. Kavanagh suspected that greatness was being thrust upon him to keep him out of the appeal. A private detective, Mark Yelland, played by Tim Pigott-Smith, is let loose on the case.

The dead woman was a Hungarian spy, killed by her lover as she tried to steal his data encryption system for British Intelligence. The intelligence people had the hotel room under surveillance, and so put her body in the room of an innocent man, who was found guilty, and blackmailed the real killer into giving them access to his clients' secrets. The detective explains it all at the end.

She liked the detective, whom she compared to a ginger ferret, and the look of the production, which she called decorative and distinguished, if rather old-fashioned. She noted a resemblance to Perry Mason, with Thaw as the lawyer who never lost, Pigott-Smith as the private eye and Samantha Bond as Della. And she concluded that Kavanagh never got to be a judge.

Stephen Churchett wrote the special and Jack Gold directed. The special ran for two hours, and began at 8.30pm. The Guardian's overnight figures gave it 7.9 million viewers and a 53 per cent share, while Wikipedia quotes 8.25 million from BARB. IMDb voters give it 8.8 out of 10, second only to Time of Need.