Plot summary
A gunshot is heard by two passers by in the park, and they quickly flag down some cops. Only to discover the dead person was a fellow Police Officer Pete Garvey, but the apparent murder quickly turns out to be a suicide. Matt Devlin takes it badly as he was childhood friends with Garvey as well as his first partner on uniform detail. Garvey's widow says that he had recently been plagued by nightmares and was seeing Jonathan Nugent ( Matthew Marsh ), a former priest and pillar of the community but in reality an undetected paedophile, who had molested Garvey and others when they were boys.
It becomes apparent that Garvey was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after being reminded of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Nugent. The now-married Nugent and Devlin face off as CPS engages in a risky gambit and charges Nugent with manslaughter, for causing the PTSD, on the fact that Nugent's abuse so unbalanced Garvey that he killed himself as a result. The case becomes increasingly difficult, and Nugent claims that Garvey was blackmailing him, which tips the jury on his side. On top of that, Steel must now deal with the Catholic church, who wish to do a deal, and the press.
Credits
Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Law & Order: UK series 3. HTML formatting and reference markers removed.