Trial & Retribution

- Season 10

(2007)

DCI Roisin O'Connor and DS David Satchell investigate the apparent murder of Emily Harrogate who is found by her parents at the bottom of the cellar stairs. When the parents and their two younger children returned home the previous evening, they assumed she was in, but did not check. The girl's mother Diedre is a compulsive cleaner and cleaned the house before going to bed. When they found the girl the next morning, the distraught parents moved her to the study. Between the cleaning and moving the body, much of the evidence has been contaminated. The police suspect ...

The police continue their investigation into Emily Harogate's death. Dr. Mullins thinks that her death is anything but accidental. DCI O'Connor is certain that it's friend or family-related. They know that Emily had come home an hour early and believe she went home to meet someone. The police find a motive when Emily's diary reveals that she and Michael Summerby had been seeing each but that she was going to end her relationship with him. Michael is arrested and charged with her murder. He's not very cooperative with his barrister and he is clearly hiding something. ...

Teenager Madeline Fuller is raped and then killed and a couple of months later Walker still has no leads. He realises that the manner of Madeline's death follows the same pattern of similar unsolved crimes stretching back over some years. To assist the police with their investigation Max Stanford, an American criminal profiler, is brought onto the team.

Roisin's interest in Stanford goes beyond the professional when she gets drunk and amorous and Walker has to warn her about her behaviour. He is also displeased when she expresses doubts as to the reliability of a former colleague who investigated the earlier murders. When a female officer is the victim of a vicious attack, Roisin has to face up to the truth. Is Max Stanford actually who he claims to be?

A blood-stained Milton Jones is found after his girl-friend is murdered. He claims that he was in amnesiac shock and cannot recall the murder, but only vaguely remembers that another man was in the victim's flat before her death. He is arrested but evidence seems to suggest his innocence. As he is black - and the dead girl was white - his family accuse Roisin of racist behaviour. Following two more slayings, it appears that a serial killer is targetting white women with black boyfriends.

Believing for the moment that Milton Jones is innocent Walker decides to use him as a helper in the enquiry. DNA and forensic evidence brings in a likely suspect but unfortunately Milton fails to identify him clearly in the police line-up. Roisin meanwhile discovers that the victims were linked by a night club though staff are hostile when she investigates it against Walker's better judgment. She is also having an affair with Neil Dench, a barrister in the case, and when it looks as if Milton is in the frame again, the relationship is seen as injurious to the trial's ...

Single mother Suzy McDonald walks into a nightmare when she returns home from work to find her baby daughter Poppy has been slain and her nanny,Leanne, has gone missing. The police eventually locate and arrest Leanne. They find out that her real name is Rachel Burns and that she has acted as a nanny for other families in the past, in each case using assumed names. Why, if she has nothing to hide?

The police discover that Rachel was once the nanny for a couple whose baby son,Joe, also died and Walker wants to exhume the child's body. Whilst the mother,Gina, is eventually cooperative, her husband Lee is dead against the idea and is actually defensive of Rachel, hardly surprising as he had had an affair with her. To complicate matters, Poppy's mother Suzy, is revealed to be in fragile mental health and could also be guilty of killing her child.

Metroploitan Police Commander Jack Daly and his wife Honor, a magistrate ,are murdered in their home and valuables are stolen in what initially seems to have been a burglary that went wrong. However there are several people who stand to benefit by the couple's death including her brother Paul, a man with gambling debts, Janet the house-keeper, also a beneficiary in their will, and most especially their twin sons Michael and Rory who will inherit a vast fortune. Given the high profiles of the victims Walker is under pressure from his superiors to get a quick result.

Despite an apparently water-tight alibi, there is something about the twins' behaviour that makes Walker uneasy, particularly as the dominant Michael seems to be controlling his asthmatic brother, and the boys are arrested and sent for trial. Family secrets start to be revealed when Michael claims a history of abuse from his father and it also comes out that Commander Daly was being unfaithful to his wife with Janet, the house-keeper, thus widening the net again.