5:52PM, Oct 02, 2009
Criminal Justice is a new thriller that runs over five consecutive nights on BBC1.
Ben Whishaw, star of the drama, speaks about his character's dramatic demise.
Ben heads up an impressive cast which features Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Paterson and Lindsay Duncan.
He plays Ben Coulter a 21-year-old who through a turn of events finds his life unrecognisable at the end of what should have been a simple night out.
Fuelled by drink and drugs, Ben has a wild encounter with a sexy young woman. Twenty-four hours later he is charged with her murder although he can't remember what happened the previous night.
But can he prove his innocence? It's a tough call as the youngster is plunged into the complicated legal system, and even his parents start to question whether their son is a murderer.
Ben says Peter Moffat's script was so compelling he couldn't put it down.
He said: "It was something I felt I had to do, and the story seemed to tap into really primal fears. It has a nightmarish quality - it's quite complex and challenging."
Ben talked about the process of his characer's journey and admits that his plight intrigued him.
He said: "Ben is really kind of an Everyman figure – it seemed to me he could be any one of us. He's young and open – an innocent."
"Ben's journey is an enormous one.
"For me, it's really a story about how you keep a good heart in a system that's designed to break you. How do you hold on to the truth when everybody doubts you?"
Ben adds that it's also a thriling 'human story' about a person whose life is taken to extremes.
Find out when Criminal Justice is showing on TV.
