She told CultBox: “[Law & Order creator] Dick Wolf talked about a crossover way back when the show launched and America’s reception to our show has been nothing short of amazing, so a crossover is a real possibility.”

Co-producer di Girolamo joined the show’s writing team for Series 3 and is now lead writer for Series 5 and Series 6.

Three spin-offs from the original Law & Order series currently air in the US – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Los Angeles.

She added: “My ideal scenario would be a crossover with SVU. In fact, give Dick a call right now because I have the perfect ‘ripped from the headlines’ case to inspire us. In the nineties there was an American guy who I actually worked with briefly in prison over here. He became obsessed with a British student and followed her back to the UK, murdered her, leaving her body in a hire car at the airport before flying back to the States.”

She continued: “In my version, Ronnie and Matt would find the mutilated body dumped in London, but the hunt for the killer would take them stateside where Benson and Stabler would track the killer to extradite him to the UK so Alesha could prosecute him here!”

Law & Order: UK returns to ITV1 for a new six-part series at 9pm on Monday 7th March.