Men of Substance

Men of Substance is a prosecution, not a defence. Kavanagh is acting for HM Customs, and the case is anything but straightforward. Fifteen kilos of heroin have been seized, hidden in condemned meat, and yet there is no physical or forensic evidence that ties the drugs to any of the accused.

TVDB explains how he came to be in the case. He is forced to replace the prosecutor, who has a heart attack, and the case concerns drugs imported from Holland. That detail puts Kavanagh in the position of taking over a brief that someone else has prepared, with little time to make it his own.

The defendants do not make the job easier. One of them, Kevin Gregson, played by Jonny Phillips, may have eliminated a witness in a previous case. When Kavanagh and his wife are threatened, he seems true to form. The menace is not only in the courtroom but at the Kavanagh home, and it tests the barrister's refusal to be bullied, which Wikipedia names as one of his defining traits: he will not stand for injustice and is never bullied by threats or bribes.

There is a further complication. Kavanagh begins to suspect that not all is above board as far as the evidence is concerned. A case with no physical or forensic link to the accused depends on what the investigators say, and the doubt he has about it adds a second problem to the first: the prosecution may be less secure than it appears.

Kavanagh, in the series' account, is a leading criminal barrister from a working-class upbringing in Bolton, a detail that is hinted at early and spelled out only in later episodes. Matthew Hall wrote the film, his first for the series, and Charles Beeson directed.

Beeson also directed several later films in the series. The cast includes Dermot Crowley as Graham Emerton QC, Ruth Gemmell as Jenny Norris, Martyn Ellis as Chris Owen, Ken Drury as Alan Pearson and James Greene as Judge Phipson, alongside Oliver Ford Davies as Peter Foxcott QC and Anna Chancellor as Julia Piper.

The film was shown on Monday 4 March 1996, the second of the six films in the second series. Central Television made it for ITV.

IMDb voters give it 8.2 out of 10, one of the higher scores of the second series.

The sources read describe the setting-up of the case but not its resolution. They do not say whether the evidence was tampered with, who threatened Kavanagh, or what the verdict was, so this account does not either.