A SNP MSP has criticised a hit BBC drama over its inaccurate portrayal of Scots law.
Dr Alasdair Allan told corporation chiefs he enjoyed the series Vigil once he got over his"irritation" with the suggestion sudden deaths are investigated by coroners inIn Scotland, sudden deaths can be probed in a fatal accident investigation . The decision to hold an FAI is up to the Crown Office though there are various circumstance in which they are legally required such as deaths in custody or at work.
Starring Martin Compston and Suranne Jones, Vigil, which was broadcast last year, was the UK's most watched drama launch in three years. After he's told by Commander Neil Newsome that the submarine would not go up to aid the fishermen, Burk fumes:"What about the Antares, a whole crew left to drown?Dugald Campbell, 20, skipper Jamie Russell, 36, William Martindale, 24, and Stewart Campbell, 29, died when the Antares’ fishing nets became tangled with a submarine passing underneath it in the Firth of Clyde on November 22, 1990.
Philip D Grove, a naval historian, said the programme was at odds with reality from the first scene, in which Compston's junior submariner, Burke, angrily questions the authority of Paterson Joseph's Captain Newsome after an apparent collision with a trawler.