Learning about the real corruption-busting cops is far more entertaining than Line of Duty

The BBC Two documentary series ‘Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty’ provides an excellent insight into a wild period, writes Janet Street-Porter

Adrian Dunbar as Ted Hastings in the latest series of ‘Line of Duty’ (BBC)

Almost 10 million people tuned in to the latest episode of Line of Duty, the fictional saga about bent coppers with a plot so confusing that some critics have been printing an explanatory guide.

However, to see how the complicated relationship between police and criminals works in the real world, watch Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty, an excellent new BBC Two documentary series.

Using old footage, brilliant graphics and atmospheric music (with narration by Philip Glenister from Life on Mars), it focuses on the parlous state of the Metropolitan Police in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a detective was recorded telling a small-time criminal that he had “friends everywhere”.