Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty

The first episode begins in 1969, at a time when the British police are held to be the most trusted and effective force in the world. But all that is about to change. When a desperate south London villain tips off The Times about how he is being extorted for money by a detective in the Metropolitan Police, something much more shocking is discovered: that at the heart of the Metropolitan CID there exists a 'firm in a firm', a secret network of corrupt coppers. With insider interviews, evocative archive footage and secret recordings, the documentary reveals the story behind The Times's investigation and shows how the public myth of incorruptibility protected the police for so long.

The second episode dives into the sleazy underbelly of London's Soho in the early 1970s, where an explosion of dirty pornographic bookshops provides an open invitation for corrupt cops to be greedy. With insider interviewers and archive footage, this episode contniues to unearth the lawless underworld of 1970s London, audacious levels of police corruption and the birth of the internal force tasked with stopping the rot.

By the late 1970s, armed robbery had been brought to a state of near-perfection. Seen as a ‘glamour crime', it was committed by men prepared to take big risks, survive shootouts with the police and die for the prize. But despite violent armed robbers being arrested, evidence was being watered down, and criminals were being granted bail. Money seemed to be passed to bent cops via middlemen to get lawbreakers released. Despite sweeping changes brought in by Sir Robert Mark in the Metropolitan Police, this final instalment reveals how, in the late 1970s, corruption within the City of London's CID had grown out of control - and how Operation Countryman was launched in response.