Protection

The hidden world of witness protection is fertile ground for programme-makers. “When I started work on Protection, I began to see how clandestine witness protection is,” says Kris Mrksa, lead writer on a new ITV six-part drama.

“I hadn’t grasped how completely witnesses cut ties and start over. And police officers need to hide their own identities ­– if criminals knew who they were, they could follow them to safe houses. That aspect made it feel like espionage; they were spies rather than cops.”

Creator Kris Mrksa has based the series on the first-hand experiences of a witness protection officer who served in the Met for 30 years; a job that is "darker, murkier and far more complex" than most of us realise, teases the synopsis.

Many protected people are themselves criminals, which means officers often have to morally compromise, and they have to actively distrust their own colleagues to maintain maximum secrecy.