Duty bound
WITH its 1970s jazzy soundtrack, grainy footage of old police chases and Life on Mars actor Philip Glenister narrating, this has the feel of a cool cop caper. But the documentary series, about a network of corrupt officers in London, is entirely serious.
We’ve been watching AC-12 crack down on bent coppers for six series of Line of Duty, but this is an insight into the inspiration behind the BBC1 thriller – the work of the real anti-corruption team A10, set up in the MET in 1972.
This final episode explores armed robbery, which by the late 1970s had been brought to
BBC2, 9pm
a state of near-perfection.
It was committed by men prepared to take big risks and die for the prize.
“It was the glamour crime,” says investigative journalist Martin Short. “It was about villains carrying guns but always afraid they would be ambushed by police and shot dead themselves.”
But despite violent armed robbers being arrested, evidence was being watered down, and criminals were being granted bail.
Martin says: “Rumours began to circulate that deals had been done. The ‘firm in a firm’ had not been put out of business and bent cops were still rampant.”
In one incident, men in wigs and boiler suits burst into the wages office of the Daily Express, held the staff at gunpoint, grabbed £175,000 and escaped with ease.
Derek Smith, an Inspector in the City of London police, told how he found the getaway car, but the incident room ignored him.
Corruption had grown out of control, leading to the launch of a new operation.