THE GOOD APPLE (STEPHEN)

There's a moment in Brian de Palma's 'The Untouchables' when Sean Connery's Jimmy Malone starts assembling the Treasury Agents team for the fight against Robert De Niro's Al Capone.

Malone insists on going to the police academy to choose a new recruit and wants one who is especially handy with a gun.

Explaining this is because the Chicago police is full of crooked cops, he tells Kevin Costner's Elliott Ness: "If you are afraid of getting a rotten apple, don't go to the barrel. Get it off the tree."

ITV's latest Stephen Lawrence drama 'Stephen' shows not all apples are rotten in every police force, while reminding us that London's Metropolitan Police were labelled incompetent and institutionally racist by an inquiry into its handling of the murder investigation.

While viewers will find themselves getting riled by the mishandling of the Stephen Lawrence case and attitudes of some officers towards his family, it salutes a small band of dedicated and diligent Metropolitan Police officers who did the right thing and made amends for an investigation that badly failed the victim of the April 1993 racist attack.

Written by Frank and Joe Cottrell Boyce and directed by Alrick Riley, the three episode miniseries casts Steve Coogan as DCI Clive Driscoll whose interest in the case is piqued by the discovery of files relating to the investigation during the decommissioning of a police station.

Beginning in 2006, we see Stephen's mother Sharlene Whyte's Doreen delivering a speech on a construction site where a centre in her son's name is being built.

Stephen's father, Hugh Quarshie's Neville is also taking part in a meeting to persuade officials to pursue a judicial review of the case.

In light of the rediscovered files, Driscoll persuades Sian Brooke's senior officer Cressida Dick to allow him to assemble a team to review the investigation.

Driscoll is very much of the opinion that what it is needed is an old fashioned police probe which goes back to the basics of a good, solid investigation.

Working with Jonjo O'Neill's DI Shaun Keep and others, Driscoll tries to recreate events and deploys new forensic techniques to test previous theories about what may have happened.

Driscoll and his team also have to sensitively handle how they deal with the Lawrence family - informing them of how the investigation is proceeding and what they are unearthing, while trying to manage any expectations.

Doreen is a robust critic of the Met and highly cynical about police motives - particularly when information about a fresh investigation is leaked to the media.

Driscoll, however, works hard to get her onside - trying to convince Doreen the new investigation is not a cosmetic exercise and keeping her regularly up to date on developments.

He manages to thaw relations between Doreen and himself but is extremely conscious how quickly that progress can be knocked off track.

'Stephen' is a sensitively written and well crafted miniseries about how good policing went some way towards rectifying a huge injustice and addressing previous investigative blunders.

Skilfully written by Frank and Joe Cottrell Boyce, it mostly avoids chest beating histrionics and embraces the no nonsense approach of a good police procedural while reminding its audience of the McPherson Report's exposure of significant police failures in the Lawrence case.

A lot rests on the shoulders of Coogan who does a decent job as the morally resolute and focused Driscoll.

Given his gift for mimicry, though, he occasionally treads a fine line, delivering lines as if he is sending up the kind of John Thaw or John Simm performance that ITV viewers are used to.

The Cottrell Boyces wisely ensure the focus is not completely on Driscoll and they are careful to avoid a white saviour dynamic during the telling of the story.

Indeed 'Stephen' is at its most impressive in its depiction of the impact of the murder on his grieving and frustrated relatives.

Whyte turns in a stirring performance as Doreen Lawrence who is deeply suspicious of the renewed police interest and angry about a case that has been marked by a litany of shocking investigative failures.

'Stephen' reminds viewers just how shocking those failures were.

Potential witnesses were either ignored or not called for weeks after the murder to provide evidence, exposing them to intimidation that could have been avoided.

The suspects' names were provided within hours of the attack, yet they were not actually arrested until a fortnight had passed by

Some basic forensic tests were not even done because of an assumption that the attack was so quick, they would yield little information.

Quarshie, who played Neville Lawrence in ITV's award-winning 'The Murder of Stephen Lawrence,' reprises the role and captures his frustration and subdued anger.

Stephen Patton and Rob Whitcomb have the unenviable task of playing Gary Dobson and David Norris - two of the five suspects who were eventually sent to prison and they turn in effective performances.

Nancy Carroll and Sam Troughton also provide sturdy support as the forensic scientists who make key breakthroughs in the case using advances in technology.

O'Neill does what is required as a member of Driscoll's team, while  Richie Campbell turns in a nicely judged performance as Stephen's friend, Duwayne Brooks who survived the attack and was deeply traumatised by the experience.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, 'Stephen' reminds us that institutional racism is a cancer that has not been confined to the US but is pretty common around the world.

While some strides have been made, it remains a considerable challenge.

It needs moral decency and steely determination to defeat it.

But if the Lawrence case and this solid drama teach us anything, it's that it requires unity of purpose between races and a commitment to never forget or repeat the mistakes of the past.

('Stephen' was broadcast on ITV from August 30-September 13, 2021)