Witness protection is often glamorised as keeping innocent witnesses safe from harm but the truth is darker, murkier, and far more complex. Many protected people are themselves criminals. It’s a life of moral compromise. It also involves maximum secrecy, false identities, and a world where you can’t trust your own colleagues.
Based on the first-hand experiences of a long serving witness protection officer, Protection is about what happens when the system breaks down. It’s about a police officer, Detective Inspector Liz Nyles (Siobhan Finneran), who finds herself at the heart of such a breach; personally compromised by an affair with a colleague, but determined to fight back, and uncover the true source of corruption within her unit. To redeem herself, the reputation of her lover, and to keep her witnesses safe. Even if they don’t always deserve it.
Navigating the morally-grey, clandestine world of witness protection, Liz’s mission to find the truth will take her deep into the heart of the criminal underbelly and beyond as she becomes more and more torn between caring for her family, her loyalty to her lover and her duty as a police officer. This is the story of a smart, tough cop, out of her depth in a world where nothing is as it seems.
With a deft narrative that engages from the outset, Kris Mrksa creates suspenseful twists and with every hairpin turn perfectly navigates the story to ensure the audience won’t know who to believe and who is telling the truth.