Police Protecting Children (BBC2): Making It At Holby (BBC1): NOT everyone will have stayed the course of the 90 often-harrowing minutes of Police Protecting Children. This was disturbing television as the makers spent 18 months filming the Metropolitan Police's child protection team.

The first of three programmes focused on Internet paedophilia. The arrest of an American couple, making $1m a week through a website selling pictures of children being abused, led to police here receiving a list of over 7,000 British subscribers.

The programme made it clear, in case anyone was in any doubt, that paying to look at such pictures makes you guilty of inciting another to distribute indecent images of children. Copying those images constitutes a further crime.

It was necessary to give an idea of the type of photos involved. Areas of the pictures shown had to be blacked out for obvious legal reasons, but we saw and heard - as officers described the images - enough to bring home the horror of a trade involving the rape of babies and bondage of children aged five. When you heard a policewoman describe one photo as showing a nappy being removed before the abuse was committed, you wondered what sort of people could both do this and pay to see pictures of it.

The answer is that they come from all walks of life. The list of subscribers included accountants, TV executives, policemen, and teachers. One of the latter was shown being arrested. So too was The Who's Pete Townshend, the most high profile name on the list.

He was questioned after being exposed in a tabloid newspaper. Police had decided he was a low priority case and put him near the bottom of the long list they were working through. Once his name was leaked, they had to deal with him.

Cameras followed him through the undignified process of being booked into a police station and interrogated. Townshend, who said he logged on to the site once for research purposes, was given a formal caution and no charges were brought. No indecent images were found on his computer.

In the light of that, whether it was fair to devote such a large chunk of the programme to Townshend is debatable. It would also have been helpful to hear from the experts as to what makes people want to view such images.

It was a relief to turn to Making It At Holby, part of the BBC's Talent Week programmes. This followed, in a sometimes patronising way, the casting of two new characters in BBC1's Holby City.

There was too much of actors - Robson Green was one of the culprits - talking in a serious, actory way about their art. It's a soap for goodness sake, not King Lear.

At least the producers made the right choices. Jaye Jacobs (particularly) and Kelly Adams are newcomers to watch out for in the future.

Published: 24/03/2004