Season 5
Judge John Deed is a British legal drama television series created by G.F. Newman and produced by the BBC in association with One-Eyed Dog, which stars Martin Shaw as Sir John Deed, a maverick High Court judge who tries to seek real justice in the cases before him.
The series originally aired in the UK from 9 January, 2001 to 18 January, 2007. There are 29 episodes in six seasons.
Judge John Deed airs in South Africa on DStv's BBC Entertainment (formerly BBC Prime) channel.
Season 5 originally aired on BBC Entertainment from Monday 1 June to Thursday 4 June 2009, at 20h30. New episodes aired daily at the same time. There are four hour-long episodes in the fifth season.
A rebroadcast of Season 5 airs on BBC Entertainment from Monday 28 to Thursday 31 December, 2009, at 20h30. New episodes air daily at the same time.
Season 5
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She wants to know why his Government-funded Legal Aid was withdrawn.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.