She told CultBox: “I worked in prison for eight years using drama-based techniques to rehabilitate offenders. It was an incredible time and brought me into contact with some pretty unique characters.”

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

She continued: “Inevitably my work in prison has had a profound affect on my writing. I spent a lot of time working with people who had done terrible things and getting to the heart of why they did what they did.  I stepped into some very dark territory and got a glimpse of a side of humanity most writers probably never see.”

She added: “I like to be as truthful as possible when I write about offending behaviour because there are a whole stack of clichés that TV crime writers rely on time and again, and they just become accepted as real. I think in terms of my episodes of Law & Order: UK we’ve made some brave decisions in our representation of offenders and their behavior and we strive to avoid those UK crime show clichés.”

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