How did the police ever solve any crimes before CCTV? That was the question which sprang to mind watching the first episodes of two highly promising new crime dramas this week. It’s also the central question now facing the detective in one of them.
Part police officer, part career women, Rachel Carey in The Capture (BBC1, Tuesday) is being fast-tracked through the system to the traditional disapproval of her grizzled, old-school boss DCI Alex Boyd — imaginatively known as Boydy. Fortunately, Rachel (Holliday Grainger) won’t be with his unit for long. Having saved Britain from a deadly terrorist attack while working for special ops, she’s been sent there temporarily to see how she might handle a high-profile murder or kidnapping.
And as luck would have it, she didn’t have to wait long. Within hours, CCTV street footage obligingly showed a woman being attacked and apparently abducted by a soldier. The trouble was that the soldier in question turned out to be Shaun Emery (Callum Turner), who’d just been released from prison after video evidence of him executing a Taleban insurgent was revealed as unreliable.
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