BBC under fire from QC over portrayal of devious barristers in Criminal Justice drama

A war of words has erupted between the writer of the BBC's latest drama and the headTimothy Dutton QC thinks Criminal Justice is misrepresentative of the Bar Council over the programme's portrayal of barristers.

Criminal Justice, a prime time five-part series running all this week, is billed as a 'rollercoaster ride through the criminal justice system' and has attracted nearly 5million viewers each evening.

But Timothy Dutton QC has objected to the depiction of his fellow barristers as devious, overly aggressive and unethical.

The second episode triggered an exchange of views on the letters page of The Guardian between Mr Dutton and the show's writer Peter Moffat, who is also a trained criminal barrister.

Mr Dutton particularly took offence to an incident in Tuesday night's episode in which a QC played by Lindsay Duncan prompts her client to provide a false defence to a court - a breach of professional conduct that would often lead to the barrister being struck off.

In his opening salvo, Mr Dutton wrote: 'The serial is not the basis upon which one can draw any sound conclusions about our system of justice. Publicly-funded criminal defence practitioners continue to serve the public in the most difficult circumstances.

'Even though the system is chronically underfunded, they act to the highest standards. Counsel's first duty is to the court and to the interests of justice. Criminal justice is not a game and it is a travesty to suggest practitioners see it in that way.'

But Moffat, a veteran writer of legal dramas including Kavanagh QC and Crown Court, disagreed.

Writing today, he said: 'Timothy Dutton ... seeks to reassure us that defence practitioners act to the highest standards. Does this include the barrister disciplined recently for punching his opponent in court? Or the defence practitioner who sent documentary 'evidence' (in fact invented and drafted by himself) from an internet cafe in Oxford Street to his opponent?

'It is about time the Bar faced the fact that like every other profession it has brilliant and fair-minded practitioners, those of average ability and the violent, dishonest and stupid working within it.'

Criminal Justice is about a young man, played by Ben Wishaw, charged with murder after waking to find that a woman he has just slept with has been stabbed to death.

Ben Wishaw plays the defendant in the five-part BBC series Criminal Justice