The concept couldn’t have been sexier: a real-life Line of Duty. That’s how film-makers Hugo Pettitt and Ashley Francis-Roy pitched their documentary series to Channel 4 commissioners and the top brass of Avon and Somerset police, whose corridors they wanted to shoot inside. It was late 2020, TV audiences were awaiting the final series of AC12 bent-copper hunting. In their docuseries, Pettitt and Francis-Roy would be embedded within Avon and Somerset’s very own professional standards department and counter-corruption unit – their cameras granted access for the first series of its kind involving a British police force.
“We expected secret squirrel-style cases,” Pettitt said, “maybe without the explosions and guns, but still an enjoyable journey of officers solving cases and crimes, rooting out individual officers.” While precise formats differ, access-driven law-enforcement shows like this have become a mainstay of modern British television. Major returning series including 24 Hours in Police Custody (also Channel 4), BBC One’s The Met, Special Ops: Crime Squad (UKTV) and Sky’s The Force – alongside a constant stream of limited series and single documentaries – ever-popular with audiences, drawing out drama by following criminal investigations, or bobbies on the beat.
