The courtroom is silent. The prosecution leaps on this: “You see? He admits he held the knife!” The jury deliberates for hours. The judge warns that the evidence is circumstantial but strong. Juliet delivers a closing speech that is less about Ben’s innocence and more about reasonable doubt: “The prosecution asks you to believe a man in a heroin stupor committed a precise, violent act, cleaned himself up, and went back to sleep. That is not reasonable. That is fantasy.”
Ben insists: “I didn’t do it.” But his lies (about taking heroin, about leaving the flat) make him look guilty. His own barrister, Juliet Miller, initially believes he’s guilty too. Ben is sent to HM Prison Belmarsh to await trial. There, he is placed in a cell with Rashid, a volatile but intelligent young Muslim dealer who runs the wing’s drug trade. Rashid initially bullies Ben, but later protects him from violent predators in exchange for Ben running errands (delivering drugs). criminal justice season 1
But Ben doesn’t want to believe he’s a killer. He remembers Mel kissing him, then suddenly turning cold. He remembers her saying, “You’re just a boy.” He remembers pushing her… but the stabbing? A blank. Juliet Miller, a chain-smoking, sharp-tongued barrister who has seen every kind of guilty client, begins to doubt the prosecution’s case. She realizes that DI Munday suppressed evidence: Mel had a history of violent arguments with an ex-boyfriend, and her phone records show a call to that ex the night she died, after Ben passed out. The courtroom is silent
The police pick him up within 48 hours. DI Munday presents a damning picture: Ben’s prints on the murder weapon (a kitchen knife), his DNA mixed with Mel’s blood, a neighbor who heard a man’s angry voice that night, and Mel’s diary entries that suggest she feared a younger lover. The judge warns that the evidence is circumstantial
“I don’t know if I killed her. I remember being angry. I remember holding the knife. But I don’t remember stabbing her. If I did it, I’m sorry. But I don’t believe I’m a murderer.”
More importantly, the heroin in Ben’s system was at a level that would have rendered him unconscious for 6–8 hours. Forensic expert testimony suggests the murder likely occurred while Ben was in a deep nod , making it physically impossible for him to have committed the act.