Silent Witness: Series 11 Episode Guide

1.Apocalypse (Part 1)

Dr Harry Cunningham and Dr Nikki Alexander spend a rare day off visiting an air show, in which an old school-friend of Harry’s is flying. After a fun day together, they are driving to dinner when they see a low-flying military helicopter crash into a building. They rush to the scene and find carnage: the building had been a crowded detention centre for failed asylum seekers, and chaos reigns.

Harry rushes to the pilot’s side, but finds himself in more than a spot of trouble when the Ministry of Defence suddenly arrives to take charge.

Elsewhere, Professor Leo Dalton, who has spent the day fighting to defend his department from colleagues in the private sector, receives a call from Harry who asks him to turn on the television, and then get to the scene as quickly as possible.

When it looks as though the MoD is preparing to brush the incident under the carpet with a swift verdict of pilot error, Harry determines to uncover what really happened and embarks on an investigation of his own – but, with such a personal connection, will he really be able to retain his professional objectivity?

Meanwhile, Nikki starts work on identifying the victim at the centre of the crash, and wonders who is the girl who fled the site on the night of the accident – and whether she knows her own identity?

2. Apocalypse (Part 2)

Dr Nikki Alexander worries about Dr Harry Cunningham; it looks as though his search for the truth, and his bid to clear the pilot’s name, might be bordering on obsession.

Still haunted by the crash and its immediate aftermath, Harry attends the RAF board of enquiry where he is less than impressed with their reluctance to answer his questions.

Frustrated, and distinctly short on leads, he finds himself face to face with the father of the pilot, who asks him to perform an independent autopsy. Is this the chance to prove the pilot’s innocence that he’s been looking for?

Meanwhile, back at the office, Nikki and Professor Leo Dalton uncover a baffling mystery of their own when the autopsy and reconstructed image of the victim at the centre of the crash reveals that he wasn’t who the records say he was. Too late, Nikki realises she may have put his missing daughter in grave danger from her father’s enemies.

3. Suffer The Children (Part 1)

When a mutilated child’s body is found in a river, unpleasant memories are stirred up for Leo. Questions are raised as to whether the child, an African boy of six, could have been murdered in some kind of ritual killing, which would explain his missing organs and limbs.

A possible lead emerges for Leo when the police find CCTV footage which shows a man dumping a heavy bag from his car into the river late at night. The team follows the lead to the house of a very defensive young man with a great deal to hide – but he is not necessarily the culprit that Leo is looking for.

Inevitably, old tensions rush to the surface in this difficult investigation, and Leo disagrees with the Detective Inspector Rush about how they should proceed. Leo believes that the answers lie with religious rituals; Rush is less convinced and wants to look at different angles. Is the past clouding Leo’s judgement?

As more and more evidence emerges that points the team in the direction of a nearby church, it seems increasingly certain that Leo is on the right track – but they are no closer to understanding what caused the boy’s untimely death. As another child’s skeleton is pulled from the river not far from the first corpse (also missing his hands and feet), Leo goes in search of answers from a witch doctor in the hope that he can help.

Meanwhile, Nikki investigates the apparently suspicious death of a priest from a local Catholic boys’ school. Was it suicide or was he pushed? As she investigates, she receives a call about a local man who has been found dead in his swimming pool after seemingly being strangled. Could there be links between this death and that of the priest?

4. Suffer The Children (Part 2)

The disappearance of a teenage girl stokes further fears of another ritualistic murder.

When the body of another man is found who had connections to the same Catholic boys’ school where the priest died, Nikki has enough to start piecing together a theory, especially when it turns out that the man found in his swimming pool had also once been a pupil.

A home video of a recent party showing all the murdered men together exposes the first lie and her case begins to take shape but, as ever, things may not be as they first appear – especially when it is discovered that all the dead men were on prescription for the same sedative, provided by the same doctor. Perhaps he can shed some light on how so many of his patients have turned up dead recently?

Meanwhile, DI Rush and Leo continue to disagree on how the investigation into the deaths of two young African boys should be run, but are thrown together in the face of adversity at a hostile Black community meeting at which the investigation is attacked for racial bias.

Surprising himself as much as his colleagues, Leo calms their grievances with a rousing call to action to help the police expose those who were responsible for taking the innocent children’s lives. Perhaps, finally, he is finding a way to lay his own ghosts to rest?

5. Hippocratic Oath (Part 1)

A horrific car crash involving a truck and a grandmother’s funeral procession takes a bizarre turn when a second body falls out of the coffin.

Back at the lab, Leo and Nikki undertake a post mortem on a child who died in surgery. The surgeon in question, Alice Huston, is a leader in her field – but Nikki’s suspicions are raised when the father suggests that he had been misled about the possibility of success in the groundbreaking surgery his child underwent.

When Nikki goes to ask Huston how she explains the risks to her patients’ parents, her theatre team leaps hastily to her defence, and it becomes clear that this is not the first time questions have been asked. Huston’s father is also clearly very concerned about his daughter’s reputation and, while visiting her at the hospital, urges her to see a lawyer. Nikki looks through Huston’s case history to find a particularly high rate of fatality – so is she taking on higher-risk cases, or is she just taking higher risks?

On the slab, it emerges that the mystery corpse was a serious cocaine addict – and, curiously, further investigation links back to Alice Huston. An identity check on the body shows it is that of Jamie, the boyfriend of Huston’s theatre nurse, Claire.

Later, Huston’s father reappears at the hospital to show her photographs he has commissioned a private detective to take to discredit her patients’ parents. Frustrated, she asks him to stop interfering.

Arriving home after hours of police interrogation, Claire suddenly remembers a secret that could explain what happened to Jamie. She rushes back to hospital to confide in Huston, but they are interrupted by Huston’s father again and she turns instead to Nikki, arranging an urgent meeting in the basement. But Nikki is walking into mortal danger – will Harry get to her in time?

6. Hippocratic Oath (Part 2)

Nikki is barely alive after a vicious attack that left her for dead, and it is down to Harry to try to work out why she was meeting Claire in the basement and what has happened to Claire. One possibility is the incinerator, and it falls to Leo to sift through the ash to try to identify her from any remains. Elsewhere, Nikki wakes up but cannot remember who attacked her, much to her frustration.

One of Alice Huston’s team comes forward to tell Harry to investigate an operation on baby Sam Reid that was carried out by registrar Imogen Westerlake. Meanwhile, Alice invites Harry for supper when they meet by chance late at the hospital.

Having established that neither of them has amorous designs on the other – and that Alice is a terrible cook – they are interrupted by her drunken father’s return with the private detective’s photos of one of the parents who is suing Alice for misconduct.

Over dinner, Harry takes advantage of the thawed atmosphere to ask Alice what happened and discovers there were two operations – the second conducted by her to repair the complications that ensued after the first one. Harry heads to the hospital to question Imogen Westerlake, who is clearly lying about her reasons for missing the second operation – but why?

Meanwhile, Nikki is making a good recovery, but has a shock realisation about the identity of her assailant, and Leo makes an unexpected breakthrough about Claire’s killer – but they are not the same person. Are there two killers on the loose? Or is there another explanation?

7. Double Dare (Part 1)

Called to a car crash which has left one woman burned to death and another in hospital, badly burned, Nikki is horrified to learn that the two women were a police protection officer and recently released Anna Holland. Four years ago, Anna goaded her boyfriend, Michael Drage, into brutally murdering Paula Colebrook in front of her children.

During the trial, Nikki had argued that Anna had not actually taken part in the murder, with the result that, controversially, Anna was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment whilst Drage went down for life.

The post mortem reveals that Anna was stabbed before the car crash. It seems someone was after revenge, and the debate of Nikki’s original findings is raised again, very publicly. However, another ghost from Nikki’s past proves an unexpected and welcome ally.

Detective Inspector Dan Jennings, who worked on the original case, is back for the internal police investigation. Anna had been kept at a police safe house, her identity a secret, and her murder suggests someone knew how to get to her.

Nikki learns that photographs of Anna’s charred corpse have been leaked to the press. Could things get any worse? It seems so, when Anna’s mother arrives to identify her and reveals evidence that suggests Anna was guilty of the murder after all.

The police visit the original victim’s husband, Jason Colebrook, to exclude him from their enquiries. Colebrook is adamant that he now believes in Anna’s innocence, based on Nikki’s evidence. He has long forgiven Anna for her role and even visited her in prison. He claims he knew nothing of her whereabouts.

But after an unsettling visit to Michael Drage, Nikki confides her doubts to Dan. What if she got it wrong at the original trial and Anna confessed all to Jason Colebrook? If he knew she was guilty after all, he could have killed her in revenge…

8. Double Dare (Part 2)

Nikki’s professional reputation is at stake as the investigation into Anna Holland’s murder continues. Having reviewed her original findings in the Paula Colebrook case, Nikki believes there’s nothing for it but to concede that they were ambiguous, and there is a chance that Anna Holland was guilty of murder. Leo warns Nikki of the grave implications for her career and advises that she sticks to the case in hand – discovering who killed Anna.

Back at the lab, Harry is working on two unidentified bodies that have been found in the garden of an empty house, as Leo and DI Glynn review the suspects and the evidence – one footprint and two trails of blood. Is it the same person doubling back, or two people?

At Anna Holland’s memorial, Mr Colebrook is confronted by her mother and categorically denies her charge that he killed her daughter, but is promptly arrested. The police have found his half-burned trainer and it matches the footprint left at the crime scene.

Harry, meanwhile, discovers that the unidentified bodies were brutally murdered with a knife. They trace the likely identity, and interview the senile owner of the house – where Drage used to be the gardener.

Drage has no hesitation in admitting keeping the murders secret to keep Anna implicated, and the fact that Drage had murdered in the same way before meeting Anna, gives credence to her original claims. It seems Nikki was right all along, but there are a few more surprises in store...

9. Peripheral Vision (Part 1)

When fragments of a skeleton are found outside a small town it seems clear that this is Clara Young, a 16 year-old who went missing two years ago. However, Angela Young believes her daughter is still alive somewhere.

Clara’s father, Malcolm Young, is a retired Detective Chief Inspector. He suspects George Woods, a traveller with a string of sexual offences to his name, of being involved in the disappearance of his daughter.

Nikki comes under pressure to confirm the identity of the remains, and Detective Inspector Philip Mays is convinced Woods is her killer. However, Nikki discovers that the bones belong to two girls, the second of whom, Floria, was herself a gyspy, and she begins to doubt Woods’ guilt. Nikki proves Woods’ innocence just as Mays believes he is wrapping up the case – but once released, George is found dead, an apparent suicide.

Meanwhile, when Rupa Joshi dies from a fall, the life assurance company refuses payment to her family, claiming she was drunk. But Rupa was a devout Hindu, and Harry performs a second post mortem, which confirms that she in fact fell from the affects of variant CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease). Harry goes head-to-head with David Beattie from the assurance company, but is again met with resistance. Beattie insists they will need to know how she acquired CJD before paying out on her policy.

10. Peripheral Vision (Part 2)

Nikki is forced to work with Mays, who is now openly hostile, investigating Woods’ death. Mays is convinced it was suicide; Nikki believes it was murder.

Meanwhile, a picture of the two girls’ lives in the town is emerging: the family troubles that led Clara to leave home, and the neglect that meant Floria’s disappearance went unreported. But when Nikki’s search uncovers a significant police cover-up, she is convinced she knows who was responsible for the girl’s deaths.

Unable to speak to the police, Nikki heads to the one man she thinks she can trust – and unwittingly straight into the hands of the murderer. In the end, it is Mays who saves her. Nikki is grateful, but cannot forgive his corruption.

Meanwhile, Harry delves deeper into the death of Rupa Joshi. His persistence pays off and eventually Bill Pickley from the Department of Health admits to a cover-up. At last, Harry has the evidence he needs and the Joshi family eventually receive the life assurance money.