In the Public Interest

Chief Constable Green runs his city the way he thinks a city should be run: no crime, no dissent, no questions. The zero tolerance policy he imposes is close to dictatorship, and the streets look clean for a very simple reason. The crime has moved indoors, and into uniform. Bodie and Doyle arrive to look around and start asking the wrong questions almost immediately.

The trigger is an attack on a gay youth counselling centre by masked men, one of whom the staff suspect is police. That suspicion reaches Cowley, and then the local force makes its mistake. Bodie and Doyle are charged with a minor traffic offence, the sort of petty harassment designed to teach outsiders their place, and it backfires completely. The charge is petty, which makes it the perfect illustration of everything wrong with the system. The city looks peaceful because nobody dares complain, and the episode keeps that distinction front and centre. Doyle has photographic evidence of police corruption, and Green and his inspector Chives discover they have picked a fight with the wrong department.

Brian Clemens wrote it and Pennant Roberts directed. Paul Hardwick makes Green a believable tyrant, the kind of man who believes his own press, and John Judd is Chives, his willing instrument. Stephen Rea, years before The Crying Game made him a star, is Pellin, with Allan Surtees as the minister, Colin McCormack as Edwards, Tom Georgeson as Reed and Tony Calvin as Terry.

For a series usually happy with straightforward villains, this one is properly political, and it has aged better than most of its contemporaries. It is not subtle about what it thinks of policing by fear. It does not need to be. The photographic evidence is the old-fashioned trump card, proof that sometimes the camera really is the best witness.