Criminal Justice sets out its stall as a piece of drama which takes the viewer through the criminal justice system from arrest to trial.

The standard of accuracy by which to judge it can be illustrated by analogy. Imagine that Peter Moffat, its accomplished writer, was scripting a drama about the NHS. In that piece he introduces a consultant surgeon who forces the patient to have an operation that he does not need, a house doctor who kisses the patient just before an operation, and then goes on to perform it without the necessary experience, a GP who commits fraud at every turn, and a hospital without any instinct to save lives. You would probably describe such a drama as hysterical and without balance, and you would be right.

Moffat's piece presents a criminal justice system that is so beyond reality that the occasional perceptive point it makes is lost in a torrent of inaccuracy. This is all the more surprising because Moffat once practised at the Bar. There is, then, little excuse for implausible plot and dialogue. A QC would never return a trial at the last minute because of a Court of Appeal case, as Moffat suggests, implying at the very early stages of the case that the system neglects the defendant. Yet more misleading is the writer's depiction of a QC forcing the defendant to present a false story. “You are a vacuum, I love a vacuum. I get to fill it.” If this is dramatic licence then the defence solicitor gets the same treatment, “Forget the truth, winning is everything... the truth can go to hell.”

All this is fine and dandy if the drama is presenting itself as a soap. But this work holds itself out with more lofty potential. In Moffat's depiction, police are all bent, lawyers all dodgy, prisoners either brutes or paranoid schizophrenics, and prison officers turn a blind eye. It is a cliché.

Which is sad, because our grossly underfunded criminal justice system is far from perfect. It is ripe for probing and dramatic analysis. This work missed a trick.

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of 2008
• Hitler and the Downfall mash-ups
• Britney Spears: The Circus