This June BBC Entertainment features a special month of Crime and Investigation with new shows and seasons premiering across the month.
As you'll see, the line-up has a new show weekly, with new episodes nightly at 20h30.
The full run-down of shows:
Jugde John Deed 5Premiere date: Monday 1 June 2009 at 20h30
Runs: Monday, 1 June to Thursday, 4 June 2009 from 20h30 to 21h30
Number of episodes: 4
Following the letter of the law can be tricky for Judge John Deed when the courtroom is clouded with conspiracy, heartbreak and scandal. A passion for doing right often leaves him at odds with his colleagues, family and lover - asking: is all fair in the pursuit of justice?
In this fifth season he's sent to the Hague as the British representative at the International Criminal Court and finds himself trying a young soldier for war crimes in Iraq.
Ironically Deed finds himself defending the British Government. Then he discovers that the Government has allowed the young soldier to stand trial as a trade-off to appease a radical Shia Muslim cleric.
With his increasingly dangerous militia, the cleric is struggling for control in a country without effective government. Deed uncovers military and government secrets that have far-reaching implications.
Deed also faces another difficult and highly sensitive dilemma when Jo Mills asks him to reopen the case of a soldier who was damaged by vaccines given to him by the Army and later committed suicide.
She wants to know why his Government-funded Legal Aid was withdrawn. Deed risks causing a constitutional crisis when he decides the only way to win justice for the deceased’s family is to accuse the original judge of bias.
Then as he delves deeper into the case and makes several sinister discoveries, forces move to stop him any way they can, with shocking consequences.
Criminal JusticePremiere date: Monday, 8 June 2009 at 20h30
Runs: Monday, 8 June 2009 to Friday, 12 June 2009 from 20h30 to 21h30
Number of episodes: 5
A new five-part thriller written by British playwirght and screen writer Peter Moffat (Kavanagh QC and North Square).
The story centres round Ben Coulter, who's life is changed forever during one mad night. As he gets ready to go out on the town, the carefree 21-year-old looks in the mirror. It will be the last time he's able to recognise the person who looks back. Little does Ben know that a wild encounter with the sexy, young Melanie Lloyd will tear his life apart. They go for a ride in his father's black cab and a crazy evening ensues.
At the end of an uncharacteristically drug and drink-fuelled night out, Ben finds himself charged with murder and, worse still, he can't remember what happened the night before.
What follows is a rollercoaster ride through the criminal justice system; where the truth is optional and what counts is playing the game, in order to come out on top.
No one wants to hear Ben's side of the story. A complex game of cat and mouse begins as soon as he is arrested, played out between the duty solicitor, the world-weary Stone, and the pugnacious Detective Superintendent Box.
At the end of the night, Ben is finally charged with murder and appears before the magistrates in the morning.
Ben's shocked parents don't know where to turn and, deep down, there is a terrifying doubt: could their son really be a murderer?
His father has employed new, high-class lawyers to represent his son and Ben and Stone part ways. Ben is denied bail and remanded in custody.
The show stars Ben Whishaw (as Ben) Pete Postlethwaite, David Harewood (Blood Diamond, The Vice), Bill Paterson (Sea Of Souls), Con O'Neill and Lindsay Duncan (Longford, Perfect Strangers).
Moses Jones
Premiere date: Monday, 15 June 2009
Runs: Monday, 15 June 2009 at 20h30 to Wednesday, 17 June 2009 from 20h30 to 21h30
Number of episodes: 3
Written by Hollywood scriptwriter Joe Penhall, Moses Jones is a three-part crime thriller set amongst London’s Ugandan community where nothing, and no one, is what they seem to be.
The story begins when a wave of violence hits a London community following the discovery of the bizarrely mutilated body of a man in the Thames.
First appearances suggest a witchcraft killing, but the dark reality is more complicated - and even more frightening. Assigned to the case is young, hopeful Detective Sergeant Dan Twentyman (played by the new Dr Who Matt Smith) and a disgruntled Detective Inspector Moses Jones (played by Shaun Parkes), who has been seconded from Scotland Yard due to his supposed cultural links with the local African community.
Confronted with a wall of silence from the cab drivers, restaurant staff and other itinerant and casual workers populating the area, Jones and Twentyman become increasingly frustrated, but all roads lead to Joy, her friend Solomon and the Afrigo Club, where the ex-pat community go to unwind to the irresistible music of Solomon’s band.
As the search deepens, the violence escalates and the investigation grinds to a halt. But one name crops up again and again - Matthias Mutukula, a mysterious godfather figure rumoured to have both terror links and supernatural powers.
Forced to ask himself tough questions about his cultural identity, Moses Jones embarks on a frightening quest to track down his man and redeem himself before the community implodes… or takes revenge itself.
The show also stars Eamonn Walker (Oz, Cadillac Records), Dennis Waterman, Indira Varma (Rome) and Jude Akuwudike (Touched By A Stranger), and newcomers Wunmi Mosaku and Obi Abili.
Whitechapel
Premiere date: Monday 22 June 2009 at 20h30
Runs: Monday, 22 June 2009 to Wednesday, 24 June 2009 from 20h30 to 21h30
Number of episodes: 3
Whitechapel is a new three-part drama about a modern-day police force facing an age-old adversary.
Set in 2008 against the contrasting facades of the London East End district of Whitechapel, a series of bloody, tragic and impossible crimes suggest that someone is carrying out copycat Jack The Ripper murders 120 years after the killer first struck.
In a city under the constant surveillance of CCTV (close-circuit TV cameras) and safe in the knowledge that DNA evidence helps catch even the most dangerous criminal, this modern-day Ripper still manages to re-create the slaughter with alarming accuracy while mirroring the red herrings and twisted idiosyncrasies connected to the original case. The locals live in fear and the police can find neither motive nor clues to help them catch this barbaric killer.
Assigned to the case is Joseph Chandler (played by Spooks' Rupert Penry-Jones), a fast-tracked, media-savvy Detective Inspector on his first big murder case.
Assisting him are Detective Sergeant Miles (Phil Davis), a front-line, hardbitten detective nearing retirement, now saddled with a boss who would rather talk about Emotional Intelligence than gut feeling; and Edward Buchan (Steve Pemberton), the expert on myths and legends behind unexplained or violent deaths: an eccentrically brilliant Ripperologist.
A modern police force is fighting an old adversary, an adversary who was never caught and the threesome need to race against time to catch the monster responsible to prevent further bloodshed.
Wallander
Premiere date: Monday, 29 June 2009 at 20h30
Runs: Monday, 29 June 2009 to Wednesday, 1 July 2009 from 20h30 to 22h00
Kenneth Branagh plays Swedish detective Kurt Wallander in three new single dramas based on the best-selling books by Henning Mankell.
The dramas follow Inspector Kurt Wallander - a middle-aged everyman - as he struggles against a rising tide of violence in the apparently sleepy backwaters in and around Ystad in Skane, southern Sweden.
In the first film, Sidetracked, a girl is seen wandering alone in a rapeseed field. Inspector Wallander is called to investigate. Before his eyes, the girl douses herself in petrol and burns to death - the event is both shocking and baffling for Wallander. A hunt for the girl’s identity begins.
On the home front, Wallander, recently estranged from his wife, has moved into his own place. Linda, his grown-up daughter, is keeping an eye on her dad as he adjusts to bachelor life. Wallander’s relationship with his own father, Povel, is difficult and, as it becomes clear that Povel’s health is in decline, Wallander strives for reconciliation with him.
Meanwhile, Wallander’s workload soars as three apparently motiveless murders are committed. The victims are all male: a former minister of justice, a small-time criminal and a rich playboy. All are viciously killed, their scalps inexplicably taken. Wallander and his team investigate, determined to discover who the killer is and how these murders are connected.
For more info on each show, as well as trailers, see BBC's Crime and Justice website:
Crime and Justice Season.
BBC Entertainment is on DSTV Channel 120.