I watched all of the series again this year. I felt that the first series was better than the second to begin with; however, I think that the second series came back at the end and was equally as good, if not better than the first.
Bent coppers aside (why do these things always have at least 1 corrupt police officer – or if not corrupt at least heavily misguided), I think the programme was a fair representation of the difficulty these types of cases come with.
prout de jure 
Did you mean verdict? 🙂
I thought it was very good, I liked the drama aspect of it, and forgot all about the legal bits. I don’t know how emotional solicitors get in their job but I can imagine that it must have had a touch of reality to it 🙂
I did mean vedrict, that was a typo (I was lying on my bed when I wrote the post :p)
do you not think the programe was a slightly misleading, or misrepresentative? it considered that the only way for abuse to end was through the abused victim having to fight back, they didn’t indicate about the services available to abused women, these programmes need to have more responsibilty in educating the audience of the availibilities of such services.
otherwise they are just going to reinforce the patriarchal society we live in.
I do not think the programme was in anyway misleading. The point of the series, as with the first, was to give people an insight into the workings of the Criminal Justice system and how the system deals with the crime that has been committed in the series. I think the fact that the act was portrayed as criminal, which it is; along with the heavy sentence that was handed down to the character help demonstrate to people that this is a crime and that the system will treat it as such. Had the programme’s central focus been domestic violence, rather than the CJS, then excluding talking about other ways of dealing with domestic violence would have been a major flaw and would have been misleading, but as this was not the central focus of the series. Yes, it was based on a stereotype, but by not having the wife kill the husband it would have prevented the programme’s author, a former barrister, from showing us how these cases go through the Criminal Justice System and the problems faced by both the Defence and Prosecution.
Interesting you pick up on the heavy sentence, because a new defence law has just been passed and states that women that have killed in retaliation to abuse, not just one instant but on going, will be able to put into a defence to be tried for manslaughter, rather than murder, which I believe is a great thing.
I think the programme does well to underline the flaws within the system, but i have a problem with the way that it was considered so criminal of Juliet. It seemed to overlook what had happened to her IMO.
The norm would be a charge of murder with the option for the jury to find guilty for manslaughter (or in culpable homicide in Scotland). It’s been something that’s been done at common law level for quite some time, but I believe that it has now been written into statute in England.
With manslaughter (or culpable homicide) the trial judge has the widest discretion when it comes to sentencing and could pass anything from the most minor of sentences up to and including life imprisonment (whereas with murder life imprisonment is the only option when it comes to sentencing)