In his play Henry V, that Shakespeare crafted one of the greatest rousing speeches for the eve of battle:
“This story shall the good man teach his son; and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”
Over at Amazon Prime, its latest true crime series casts a small band of Metropolitan police brothers in a similar heroic light.
The Real Line of Duty purports to tell the inside story of a few “brave” senior Met cops who came together secretly to tackle the cycle of corruption.
The gathering took place in 1993 with the formation of a Ghost Squad to covertly scope the extent of the problem, followed five years later by the launch of CIB3 to turn that secret intelligence into very public prosecutions at the Old Bailey.
“For the first time this is its story,” gushed narrator, Martin Compston, the actor from the popular BBC drama series Line of Duty.
“This could be a film,” sizzled former CIB3 commander Andy Hayman, “you couldn’t make it up.”
Only, they did, and what follows over three episodes is neither new, balanced or accurate.
It is, however, a piece of police propaganda at a time the Met needs it most, which ends with the farcical claim that CIB3’s ruthless blitz on the bent continued for the next two decades and has acted as a “deterrent” to corrupt cops.
Absolutely, that’s why the force branded institutionally corrupt, racist and misogynist is in special measures and experiencing an unprecedented collapse of public trust with over one thousand officers being pushed through discipline and the criminal justice system.
This very public collapse appears not to have registered with those at Amazon Prime and Revelation Films [no joke], who made this series.
That such police puffery even made it on air is the story of the sorry state of ‘true crime’ TV - a genre full of light entertainment types cashing in on the public’s appetite for documentaries about guns, gangsters, gear and gore.
Revelation Films somehow sees itself as having some Cor Blimey authenticity in this area when pitching ideas on organised crime and police corruption to clueless commissioners.
Faces of the Underworld, Revelation’s first foray into ‘true crime’, predictably wheeled out the usual geriatric gangsters and some marginally younger ones to excite armchair wannabes.
Faces was followed by every commissioner’s favourite gangland execution, Murder of the Essex Boys.
Both these series lent heavily on Bernard O’Mahoney, the ex-bouncer and mouthpiece of the underworld, who gets access because he poses no threat, never asks tricky questions and rubbishes theories he or they don’t like.
Bouncers, hooligans and plastic gangsters with books to sell are now doing the job once done by awkward reporters who knew the difference between intelligence, entertaining gossip and evidence.
Gangster porn, of course, is nothing new. Publisher John Blake and his ilk have been knocking out this brand of baloney well before O’Mahoney and others started writing books and appearing on TV as reliable sources.
The tragic obsession of mainstream broadcasters and streamers with this cheap brand of true crime programme is further evidence of the race to the bottom as commitment to revelatory, risky and expensive journalism dwindles.
Older subscribers to this newsletter will recall that police corruption and organised crime were once subject matters television did well when independent journalists were given time, space and money to investigate.
Today, the space is occupied by companies such as Revelation Films, whose claim to fame is having “introduced the nation” to Lily Savage. Now the company’s bosses are the ones in drag - as serious investigative programme makers.
To prove their credentials, last July, in response to the “exponential” growth of true crime programmes, Revelation Films became a founder member of something called the Association of True Crime Producers.
It’s a collection of production companies who want you to know they aren’t just about the pound note and gangster porn, but “care deeply” for victims of the crimes and criminals they promote and for the ethics of truth telling.
The very creation of this association amply demonstrates that those cashing in on this genre are traipsing through the crime scene with little or no knowledge of journalism, libel and the criminal justice system.
There’s already effective regulation governing terrestrial programme making, nevertheless, the Association felt the need to come up with thirteen guidelines of its own, number five of which says this:
Ensuring that the programme is fair, accurate, and unbiased. Presenting a balanced and objective account of the events. Conducting extensive research and fact-checking to verify the accuracy of all information presented in the programme, including the identities and backgrounds of the people involved in the crime.
As they say in light entertainment, let’s see how they got on.