Passer By (BBC1): A TRAIN late at night. Two young men are pestering a woman, making sexual remarks in a threatening manner. A third man, the only other person on the train, tells them to stop. They ignore him and carry on addressing innuendo-laden remarks to the by-now anxious woman.

What do you do when the train reaches your stop? Do you (a) leave as if nothing was wrong?; (b) go to the assistance of the woman?; (c) give the potential attackers a good thumping?.

Tony Marchant's two-parter attempted to dramatise the situation, more particularly the consequences for happily-married hospital radiographer Joseph Keyes after he ignores the woman's plea for help and gets off the train on the grounds that they're "just drunk, being silly". He leaves her to her fate, knowing full well that the pair are likely to sexually assault her once he's gone.

The repercussions for both the victim, Alice, and the man who could have stepped in to rescue her are terrible. Later, she tells him that "I've got to live with it, and so have you" when he visits her looking for forgiveness.

"I can't," he replies.

Even in court, he can't bring himself to own up in public to his moral cowardice. As a result, the accused men are believed at the expense of the raped woman. They are acquitted.

Having James Nesbitt play Keyes was canny casting as he's instantly likeable, which made hating the character for deserting Alice all the more difficult as his relationship with his wife and children hits rock bottom, and he put his new managerial promotion at work in jeopardy as his guilty conscience came into play.

He wasn't on trial but had been found guilty of abandoning the woman. His marriage begins to crack as his wife condemns his action, while his son is being bullied at school and doesn't find any helpful role model in his tormented father's behaviour.

The audience is being tugged in both directions and being made to ask themselves: what would I have done in a similar situation? Half of you want to condemn Keyes for being a coward, while the other half is thinking he'd taken the sensible route. And, of course, you also have to wonder how you'd feel if he decided to take the Charles Bronson Death Wish route and seek revenge on the guilty parties himself outside the law.

Despite the presence of both policemen and hospitals, it made a nice change to watch a TV drama that was neither a cop or a doctor show. If there was a weakness, it was that the resolution was too pat and convenient with everyone living happily ever after.

Published: 30/03/2004