New Street Law (BBC1); Child In A Million (five): IN the first series of New Street Law, the pious behaviour of barrister Jack Roper so incensed me that I wrote I wanted to hit him.

Nothing has changed. As the series returned - and only the BBC knows why because I'm sure viewers haven't been demanding it - I felt exactly the same about John Hannah's character.

I cheered as the judged sentenced him to three years in prison for fabricating a client's defence. Then I sobbed as the judge suspended the sentence but not, alas, the defendant.

Roper was so tetchy with all around him. "It's my mess, I'll clean it up," he said, like an eager poop-scooper.

He saw his girlfriend beaten up by an aggrieved father before he did the decent thing and pleaded guilty, although not before ensuring he escaped being struck off.

His speech in court was infuriating. "If you were wrongly accused and looking at a life behind bars, I believe you might just be glad of a lawyer like me," said the sanctimonious legal eagle.

The series is notable only for wasting a really good cast who're given a few lines each while Roper mopes around looking hard done by.

John Thomson provided the light relief by defending a football agent played by former Brookside babe and lads' mag pin-up Jennifer Ellison in a laughable piece of casting.

Even Thomson caught Roper's disease with comments like, "Sometimes the truth is worth telling whatever the cost".

The truth about sick children was sometimes hard to take in Child In A Million, a life-affirming series set in London's Great Ormond Street Hospital and concentrating on youngsters undergoing pioneering treatment.

Tahlia was having breathing difficulties because of a very narrow windpipe, caused by a disease affecting just one in five million children.

Great Ormond Street is the only hospital in the country that treats children with the condition, whose impact was made clear by surgeon Professor Martin Elliott. "I don't think I've seen babies look so scared as with this condition. They don't understand why they can't breathe," he said.

The series took an unflinching but caring approach so that few will have failed to have been moved by four-year-old Molly, suffering from a form of kidney cancer that had spread to her chest. After having chemotherapy for three tumours, including one close to her heart, doctors decided to operate to remove them.

Molly was quite a character who refused to let the illness defeat her. Parents Emma and Rob took inspiration from her. "You get by with the strength of your child," said Rob.

Emma added, "She makes you feel guilty when I collapse and fall to bits. Then you think, 'shut up and get a grip, look at how she's dealing with it'."

The surgeon was keen for both parents and viewers to follow the case closely, down to showing to camera the tumours he'd cut out.

The programme told us as much about the parents' hopes and fears as the illness. "She'll get through it, we'll get through it - and eventually stop crying," said Emma, dabbing her eyes with a hankie.