Judge John Deed

Deed presides over the case of a young mans death on a building site, in which the well-connected construction company boss is trying to lay the blame on his employees. Deeds determination to get at the truth is strangely unwelcome to the Lord Chancellors department. At the same time, Charlie Deed is getting herself into hot water by liberating a dog from a laboratory in the name of animal rights. With the police hot on her trail, Charlie adroitly dumps the dog on Deed and a blackmailer gets to work.

Deed presides over a murder trial. An old man suffering from cancer died from a morphine overdose, and his attractive young woman doctor has been charged with murder, on the accusation of the dead mans niece. The doctor is acquitted, following a patholigists evidence that the cause of death was beta blockers in the medication building up in the old mans liver, so the increase in dose from 50mg to 200mg had not affected the outcome... But then the doctor comes to Deed and confesses that she intended to kill her patient. When the Lord Chancellors Department gets wind of this development, they suggest Deed was sleeping with the doctor - but with Jos help, he is able to neutralize this threst.

After a call girl is found dead in a skip, an Arab sheikhs chauffeur is charged with killing her, but the evidence points to the sheikh himself being involved in the murder. Unfortunately for Deed, the Arab ruler was in London to place a huge order with a British aircraft manufacturer, and pressure is piled on Deed by the British government, as well as by the sheikhs own. The plot thickens when counsel for the prosecution is also killed and Deeds lover, Jo Mills, takes over the case, and when he hears that Georgina Channing, his former wife, is engaged to marry Neil Haughton, the government minister fighting for the aeroplane order. Before long, witnesses disappear and the jury is being interfered with - by the British Government, no less. And then Deed gets an offer they think he cant refuse, when appointment as an Appeal Court judge is dangled before him.

Deed rekindles his old love affair with Francesca Rochester, and at first he fails to notice that she is making use of him in a struggle with her dotty aunt for power over a property and publishing empire. Francescas husband Ian and another enemy set out to undermine the Judges credibility, aiming to have him removed from office.In court, Deed is busy presiding over a murder trial in which a young lawyer and his brother and sister are charged with conspiring with a burglar to kill their parents. Meanwhile, the judges student daughter Charlie has got herself pregnant by a married lecturer at her college. Charlies mother persuades her to have an abortion, which Deed is against, but he finds out about it too late. We discover that Deed bitterly regrets Jos decision years before to abort his own child.

Deed has two difficult new cases in his court. In one, a woman with a brain tumour claims it was caused by using her mobile phone. In another, the defendant in a hit-and-run case seems unfit to stand trial.Meanwhile, in a continuing story-line from the second series, Deeds lover Jo Mills faces a disciplinary tribunal prompted by Sir Ian Rochester and presided over by Sir Monty Everard. Both of them bear grudges against Deed, and he rides to Jos defence.

Jo Mills leads for the prosecution and Brian Cantwell for the defence when a British member of parliament, Alan Roxborough, is tried on a charge of attempting to murder his boyfriend with a frying pan. As usual, there is a conspiracy in the background to pervert the course of justice, which may be connected to Roxboroughs opposition to certain British arms deals.Meanwhile, Deed goes into therapy and has a brief affair with his therapist.

Jo Mills was planning to take time off work, but then she agrees to defend a man who escaped trial sixteen years before after he was charged with attempted murder. Jo is partly attracted to the case because she recognizes two of the detectives who are mixed up in it.

Deed has the case before him of a man charged with killing a paedophile, but the jury find the defendant not guilty. After his acquittal, the man calls a press conference and sends out a message calling for similar actions elsewhere. Meanwhile, Marc Thompson, Michaels real father, arrives in England from overseas. This seems to end Jos hopes of adopting Michael, but she starts dating the new arrival, sending Deed into a jealous rage. Deed then unwisely starts a new affair with a woman appearing in his court as a claimant in an action, and Jo decides to move with Marc to South Africa.

Deed has an environmental case before him, in which a company operating a large-scale waste incinerator is accused of damaging peoples health by air pollution. Jo Mills represents the parents of a damaged child, but is losing. Then it comes out that the company deliberately hid a fault at the incinerator which made its emissions far worse. Meanwhile, Rufus Barron comes up with evidence to support the claim that Neil Haughton took a bribe on a defence contract. Then the evidence is lost, and Haughton demands that Deed should be impeached for unprofessional conduct.

Deed questions an unpleasant prison officer closely about the death of Paul Settle, a young prisoner who was stabbed to death and then partly eaten by his cell-mate Ben Bradwell just a week before he was due to get out. The Judge is worried that Settle was black, while Bradwell was known to be a vicious racist. In another case, Deed comes up with a thoughtful sentence for a drunk driver who killed a child. Meanwhile, Deed and Jo seem to be growing apart.

Deed has to judge a case concerning Jos boyfriend, Marc Thompson. Marc wants to take the decision not to resuscitate a two-year old patient at his hospital who has a weak heart and is in a coma, if the childs heart stops again, but the parents disagree. In another case, Deed has to sentence a young thief, and the youth then dies in custody. All this brings back Deeds memories of his own traumatic childhood. He is spoiling for a fight and argues with Jo - who announces that she has decided to marry Marc.

Deeds superiors want him out of the way, and they arrange for him to be called for jury service on a case which will not be over quickly - a murder trial. In court, a teenage nanny from the Ukraine is accused of killing Baby Jonathan by shaking him, which she denies. As a juryman, Deed wants to see more medical evidence. Then he discovers a cross-over with a case of Jos, in which she has evidence that the effects of the MMR vaccine could have led to Baby Jonathans death. Meanwhile, Marc Thompson is asked to travel to South Africa, to give evidence about its child vaccination program - and Jo begins to have doubts about marrying him. After quarreling with Marc, she starts to see Deed again. But then she also quarrels with Deed, who still seems to have another woman in his life - one of his fellow judges.

Deeds involvement in the case of a far-right British National Party councilor brings him to the notice of terrorists who decide to send a woman to kill him. When the assassin meets Deed, she has a surprise in store, but she still plans to carry out her orders. Meanwhile, The Lord Chancellor sends Deed to sit on an International Tribunal in the Hague, as the British government sees him as a mischief maker at home. Deed finds himself judging the case of a British soldier accused of war crimes by killing eleven Iraqi civilians.

Deed risks a constitutional crisis in pursuit of justice for a soldier?s family. Jo Mills asks him to review the withdrawal of Legal Aid funding in the case of the soldier, who committed suicide after being made ill by vaccines given to him by the British Army. Deed is reluctant, as the case has been heard and closed by another judge. His only course is to accuse the other judge of bias. When he does so, he causes consternation in the British government.