Deed questions an unpleasant prison officer closely about the death of Paul Settle, a young prisoner who was stabbed to death and then partly eaten by his cell-mate Ben Bradwell just a week before he was due to get out.
In a case in Deed's court, his daughter Charlie is the junior counsel defending Henry Free - an animal rights activist charged with murder after a fire-bomb at an animal research unit killed an eminent scientist. Then Henry falls out with his leading counsel and asks Charlie to defend him - but Deed advises her not to. Part of Free's defence is that his group had been infiltrated by an officer of MI5, the British secret service, acting as an agent provocateur, and Deed is angry when Charlie reveals the officer's identity in court.
Deed has to judge a case concerning Jo's boyfriend, Marc Thompson. Marc wants to take the decision not to resuscitate a two-year old patient at his hospital who has a weak heart and is in a coma, if the child's heart stops again, but the parents disagree.
In court, Deed has to judge the case of a couple who are fighting their local council over a police communications mast on the roof of the building they live in. Gilly Bridges has motor-neurone disease, while her husband Jake has stomach cancer, which they claim are connected with the 'tetra' mast. The incidence of both diseases in the Bridges' block of flats is many times the statistical norm. Jo represents Jake and Gilly Bridges, while Deed's former wife George appears for the defendant council.
Deed's superiors want him out of the way, and they arrange for him to be called for jury service on a case which will not be over quickly - a murder trial.
In Deed's court, Jo Mills acts for a mother whose former husband, Paul Robson-Alan, wants their baby to be given the 'MMR' vaccination. Robson-Alan is a British Government health adviser, and the outcome of the case is important to the political credibility of the Health Department. But Paul's ex-wife, Marika, believes the MMR jab is dangerous - and some dramatic new evidence is produced on that.