A Stranger in the Family

Most of the cases in Kavanagh QC are criminal, but A Stranger in the Family is not. Kavanagh has not argued a personal injury case for twenty years, and he agrees to lead the barristers in one. The case is against the Thames River Recycling Centre, where an employee has suffered brain damage and spinal injuries after being struck by a heavy container swinging through the air.

His aim is to secure a fair settlement from the insurance company for the injured man's family. As he heads to court, he discovers that the case is much more complex than he thought. The summaries stop at that discovery, and do not describe what he finds.

At home, Kavanagh's son has a request. Matt wants his father to buy him a car. It is a small domestic story beside the main one, and it fits the pattern in the first three series in which Kavanagh's private life, with a teenage son and a daughter at Cambridge, runs alongside his professional one.

The Classic Film and TV Café reviewer, writing in 2019, says the series has several first-rate episodes and above-average writing, and singles out one, without naming it, in which a young man is injured at work and suffers permanent brain injuries, with a cover-up following.

Paul Hines wrote the film, and Andrew Grieve directed. Hines wrote only this film in the series. The cast includes Janet Amsbury as Diana Walsh, Tim Bentinck as Gosling, Eileen Davies as Anne Pearson and Norma Dixit as Dr Gupta, and John Thaw is joined by Oliver Ford Davies as Peter Foxcott QC, Anna Chancellor as Julia Piper and Tom Brodie as Matt.

The film was shown on Monday 25 March 1996, the fifth of six films in the second series. TVDB and TVmaze give 26 March. Central Television made it for ITV.

Chambers at River Court provide the sub-plots in the first three series, with the pompous Jeremy Aldermarten, played by Nicholas Jones, as the usual source of comedy. The films were made for a 90-minute slot including advertisements, which is why IMDb gives about 76 minutes of drama. IMDb voters give this one 8.3 out of 10, the highest score in the second series.

The sources do not say how the case is resolved, what the more complex truth about the accident is, or whether Kavanagh buys the car, so the account leaves the story at the point where the case turns complicated.