User Reviews

Paul Vennings has absconded, his parents and Jenifer Harley try to give reasons as to why he's fled, The Judge has to decide whether or not to continue with the trial, with Paul being in absentia.

This is very, very different type of episode, it almost stands unique in comparison to those that have gone before, whilst definitely still a procedural, there is a little more of an element of melodrama, but that's no bad thing, it just makes this one a little different.

There are definitely some interesting twists and turns throughout this one, it's actually a really rather good story, and once again the acting is so good. The Judge has a few moments to bumble on, but they're in keeping with the character.

I thought the foreman of The Jury looked familiar, Peter Ellis, who would of course become known to millions as the boss as Sun Hill, Charles Brownlow, this show really did give many actors and actresses a start, I loved the hairstyle.

8/10.

More than 50 years ago, when dramatic vignettes such as this and Tales of the Unexpected, were regularly screened, I may have watched and agonised with the jury, prior to their verdict. It was far from an open and shut case (of heroin).

A father and son, the two Vennings' the title refers to, are charged with smuggling £200,000 of Chinese heroin from Cherbourg.

The father is swiftly exonerated, the main story relates to his somewhat anodyne son, perceived as unpopular at uni, loved, supposedly, by his fiancée, who testifies with about as much credibility as Donald Trump before the sacking of Congress and whether he was a party to the crime.

The question for the jury is whether Vennings Jnr was aware of the hidden cache of drugs - or whether a 'professional' gang used his boat (actually, his father's boat) as a water-borne mule.

I won't give the game away - but will say there was a 10-2 verdict (the sort of score we Tottenham fans can only dream of against Arsenal).

Suffice to say, the excellent summing up by both lawyers had me humming and haa-ing. It's a bit too late to reconvene the jury, but intriguingly, as has been said, the foreman was Peter Ellis, later Chief Inspector Brownlow in charge of Sun Hill police station in ITV's 'The Bill'.

Now I wonder if he could have established the truth in this case....