Poetic Justice, Innit?

Debbie has started a mobile hairdressing round, cutting hair in other people's houses, and on her very first job the house gets robbed while she's inside it. It isn't a great start to a new business. She's a witness to the crime, and when she and Terry take what they saw to the police, the police promptly decide the pair of them had a hand in it. The person who reported the robbery becomes a suspect, and Terry finds himself being quizzed about a crime he walked into by accident.

Meanwhile Arthur has drawn jury service, which DS Chisholm regards as an irritation and an outrage in roughly equal measure. The jury box gives Arthur a front-row seat on the justice he spends his life ducking. He sits in the box enjoying his moment in the sun while Terry minds the lock-up and tries to keep Debbie out of trouble. The two threads don't collide so much as rub against each other, and the episode has a good time watching suspicion work its way through entirely decent people.

Tony Hoare and Leon Griffiths wrote the script, Terry Green directed. Diana Malin plays Debbie, whose first day at work turns into a police interview, and Patrick Malahide's Chisholm does his best to make Arthur's jury service as painful as possible. Michael Culver is Soames, Michael Povey plays DC Jones, and Barrie Cookson, Peter-Hugo Daly and Stephen Bent appear as Parsons, Knowles and Roberts. Dennis Waterman and George Cole lead, with Glynn Edwards as Dave.

There's a quiet cruelty in the way the law treats Debbie, and the show doesn't flinch from it. Innocent until proven otherwise has never felt more fragile. But it's also funny, in that grim Minder way, to watch Arthur on the jury making the most of his moment. The title earns itself by the end, in a manner that feels both deserved and slightly unfair, which is about right for this pair.