Drug busts and scenery are a viewing hit for Highland Cops
The TV series, Highland Cops – which has featured several intriguing investigations in the Western Isles – is chalking up remarkable viewing figures across the United Kingdom as well as on its home turf.
The formula of following several stories in each episode, in various locations across the Highlands and Islands often against a backdrop of magnificent scenery, has proved an unexpected hit for the BBC and the Glasgow-based independent production company, Firecrest Films.
Now in its third series, Highland Cops shines a light on routine police work throughout the region and exposes to public view some of the seamier side of life in a region which many do not associate with crime.
A recurrent theme is the extent of the drugs trade, not least in the Western Isles. This week’s episode followed a case in Stornoway where a woman has subsequently pled guilty to two charges of dealing in cannabis and other substances. She is currently awaiting sentencing.
The programme said she had been known to police as a dealer whose “primary customers were young teenagers”. When they raided her home, in addition to large quantities of cannabis, police found a range of illegal products with bright colours, designed to be attractive to children.
They also found more than £10,000 in cash and drugs as well as links to her own suppliers on the mainland. That investigation was led by Detective Sergeant Daniel Smith, a native of Lewis, who told the programme: “I am very invested in making our community as safe as possible”.
Highland Cops is shown on BBC2 to a UK-wide audience after it has run on the BBC Scotland channel. Cumulatively, each episode is being watched by well over one million viewers and is out-gunning comparable, long-established factual TV shows.
Last week, it went head-to-head at 8 pm on Wednesday with Grand Designs House of the Year on Channel 4 and Traffic Cops on Channel 5. Highland Cops, with 776,000 viewers for this BBC2 showing alone, came out ahead of the other two.
Producer Lewis Dodds said: “It’s great to see a series made in Scotland beating two popular formats which have been around for years – especially Traffic Cops (624,000). It’s good to win the battle of the cop shows!”.
Highland Cops has also given a huge boost to the BBC Scotland channel which has struggled to attract viewers since being launched in 2019. In the current series, one episode was watched by more than 150,000 viewers on the BBC Scotland channel over two showings and regularly exceeds 100,000 for the initial Sunday showing.
Lewis Dodds said: “It’s massive for the BBC Scotland channel. People seem to be drawn to Highland Cops by the range of stories – it’s a police show but with a different theme to it”.
Filming for Highland Cops has been going on more or less continuously since the series was first commissioned during Covid. Some investigations conclude without charges and those which lead to prosecutions cannot be shown till the legal proceedings have been completed.
“A lot of it is down to the legalities”, says Lewis. “You can’t show anything until it has been through court so a lot of the good stuff gets left out or else we can’t show it till the next series.
"The Scottish court service is still running a huge backlog so sometimes it can take years before anything can be shown”.
Other times, as with this week’s Stornoway drugs raid, events have moved quite quickly and the story could be told – offering a reminder to drug dealers in the islands that the Highland Cops really are on their case and they could end up not just in the jail, but on the telly.