A charismatic MI5 informer appears in Deed's court charged with battering his wife, and the judge comes under pressure from on high to let him off, as he is an important source of information about 'The Real IRA'. In a second case, three men are accused of using Rohypnol to carry out a date rape, and a pushy young defence counsel rubs the judge up the wrong way.Outside court, Deed flirts with Francesca, a publisher who is married to his antagonist Ian Rochester: their resulting short affair is caught on camera, and a jealous husband is quickly looking for revenge.

Deed rekindles his old love affair with Francesca Rochester, and at first he fails to notice that she is making use of him in a struggle with her dotty aunt for power over a property and publishing empire. Francesca's husband Ian and another enemy set out to undermine the Judge's credibility, aiming to have him removed from office.In court, Deed is busy presiding over a murder trial in which a young lawyer and his brother and sister are charged with conspiring with a burglar to kill their parents. Meanwhile, the judge's student daughter Charlie has got herself pregnant by a married lecturer at her college. Charlie's mother persuades her to have an abortion, which Deed is against, but he finds out about it too late. We discover that Deed bitterly regrets Jo's decision years before to abort his own child.