Contact Breaker

Danny Keever is serving a stretch, but he's on weekend release and due for parole, behaving himself, keeping his head down. Then a bank gets done over, and everything points at him: the hallmarks of the job, the statement of a witness. Regan and Carter smell a set-up straight away. The robbery crew got in and out clean, and the only loose end they left behind was a man they could blame. The problem is Haskins.

But the old score is the engine of the episode, and it is personal. Haskins carries a grudge against Keever from years back, and he is not about to let the case slip because a couple of detectives think the evidence is too neat. So Regan works to clear a man the rest of the room would happily see back inside, and the friction is exactly what the show was good at: personal history rubbing up against procedure, with everyone certain they are right. The investigation moves through the usual Sweeney places, lock-ups and warehouses, and every step is contested by the boss's mood.

Warren Clarke plays Keever with the right mix of resentment and hope, and Garfield Morgan's Haskins is at his stubborn, blinkered best. Clarke makes Keever a man you hope is innocent, which is the only thing that matters here. Coral Atkins is Brenda Keever, Tony Anholt is Mark Colebrook, and the supporting cast, Colin Douglas's Commander, John Collin's Parish, Jim Norton and Kenneth Gardnier, fills the station and the street with the usual solid faces.

Robert Banks Stewart and Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, William Brayne directed. It is a fine example of the series doing what it did so well, taking a simple injustice and watching the system argue with itself about it. Regan believes the man, which is the whole show in miniature, and the ending honours that belief.