Line of Duty Only Returning If ‘There’s a Story to Tell’. Sadly, There’s No Shortage

Almost four years to the day that Line of Duty ended its sixth series on a final(ish) note, comes speculation about the BBC crime thriller’s rumoured return. That means cast members are once again ‘breaking their silence’ to ‘exclusively reveal’ little of substance to outlets including The Sun, (who previously scooped a three-part special that was supposed to have started filming in January 2023, but didn’t, and who are now predicting a six-part series to go into production in early 2026, a rumour on which the BBC and World Productions have yet to comment.)

Set in AC-12, an internal police anti-corruption unit that investigates wrongdoing on the force, Line of Duty ran between 2012 and 2021 on the BBC. Over almost a decade, it wrapped its overarching story of corrupt officers cooperating with organised crime, around the new series’ otherwise standalone case (each led by a one-and-done guest star including Lennie James, Keeley Hawes, Daniel Mays, Thandiwe Newton, Stephen Graham, and Kelly Macdonald).

From series three onwards, Line of Duty verged on a national obsession. Fans delighted in Superintendent Ted Hastings’ Northern Irish idioms, in DI Steve Arnott’s waistcoats, in the show’s indecipherable patter of police acronyms. The Dum…Dum…Dum… cliffhangers drove us wild, and the search to unveil high-ranking bent copper “H” drove us silly. It all culminated in a finale watched by almost 16 million, not all of whom were satisfied by the ending, and some of whom called for the show to return and give it another bash.

That’ll only happen, Steve Arnott actor Martin Compston told The Sun, “for the right reasons.” Those being: “because Jed [Mercurio, creator and writer], thinks there’s a story to tell.”

Excitingly for the fictional world but depressingly for the real world, there’s no shortage of those.

The stories Line of Duty tells are about individual greed and institutional weakness, and often take inspiration from real events. The instigating incident of the drama’s first series, in which Arnott’s counter-terrorism team mistakenly shoot an innocent man, was inspired by the 2005 murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot dead on the London underground by police officers who mistook him for a terror suspect – a case recently dramatised for Disney+ by Jeff Pope as Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Line of Duty series three’s story of organised child sexual abuse both perpetrated and covered up by corrupt police officers included overt reference to real-world rapist Jimmy Savile, whose abuse was facilitated by his own links with senior police officers. Series six’s historical story of a racist murder drew from the cases of Stephen Lawrence, Christopher Alder and Blair Peach, while the series’ depiction of a journalist murdered to silence her investigation into police corruption drew upon the Daniel Morgan, Jill Dando, and Daphne Caruana Galizia cases.

As Mercurio told Den of Geek after the season six finale aired:

“If you’re looking at the most conspicuous cases of real-world corruption or police failings, we did touch on the most high-profile in the last generation, with Lawrence and Savile and Dando. It’s really about reminding viewers that while Line of Duty is entirely fictional and at times lurches into a very fictional world and a very fictional portrayal of police operations, but the basic idea that corruption exists in our society is not a fiction.”

Few could argue with that (though some, including former Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, have tried).

In the years since Line of Duty concluded, it’s been hard not to be reminded of the existence of real-world corruption among those entrusted with public service and protection, from Westminster to the Met and beyond. The drama’s final series played out in spring 2021, when headlines reported on the murder of Sarah Everard by a then-serving police officer. That case seriously injured public trust in the institution and prompted calls for reform to police vetting policy that continue to this day.

Sadly, it isn’t alone. Even a cursory online search for police misconduct returns multiple instances of sexual assault, coercion, racist and misogynistic abuse, alongside higher profile cases such as the shameful treatment of murder victims Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, the murder of Chris Kaba, or the ongoing revelations about historical police connections to the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

All of which is to say that if a story of public betrayal by those in post to protect us is what Mercurio needs to inspire Line of Duty‘s return, then he can take his pick.

Line of Duty series one to six are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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