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Season 2 generally

Factual error: Everyone, including other police officers, addresses the detectives as "Detective" rather than using their ranks of "Inspector" or "Sergeant" as they actually would.

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Season 2 generally

Factual error: DI Renton is a Metropolitan Police officer 'parachuted' into Kent to solve a big case. This hasn't happened for many decades. Local police forces investigate their own crimes without help from the Met.

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Show generally

Factual error: After escaping from Danzig, Grzegorz and Konrad flee to Warsaw, then to the eastern, Soviet-occupied part of Poland. They then make their way on foot right across occupied Poland and Germany to join British forces at Dunkirk, a distance of over 1,000 miles. Not a likely journey on foot at any time, let alone across hostile territory in the middle of a war.

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Show generally

Factual error: Vernon is referred to as a squadron leader, but wears the rank insignia of the higher rank of wing commander.

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Show generally

Factual error: Tom wears the trade badge of a naval airman. When he serves on board HMS Exeter he is working in the magazine, not with the aircraft. He then serves aboard HMS Keith, which carried no aircraft, at Dunkirk.

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Show generally

Factual error: Harry joins the army after the outbreak of war and is then a platoon commander with the British Expeditionary Force during the Battle of France. Actually, all the personnel of the BEF were pre-war regulars or territorials. The personnel who joined for the war were still in training.

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Show generally

Factual error: Tom joins the Royal Navy after the outbreak of war. He then mysteriously ends up on HMS Exeter during the Battle of the River Plate. In fact, Exeter was already in the South Atlantic at the outbreak of war and the battle occurred only three months later. There is no way that Tom could have completed training and ended up in the South Atlantic so quickly.

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Factual error: Victoria is referred to throughout the film as a 'state'. Since Australia did not exist as a unified country until 1901, there were no states at the time. Each was a separate 'colony' and would have been referred to as such.

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Factual error: All four members of the Kelly gang wore helmets and armour in the final shootout, with long oilskin coats over the top.

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Factual error: Ned Kelly was not clean-shaven as depicted, but had a full beard. A full beard is often still referred to as a 'Ned Kelly beard' in Australia.

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Factual error: As well as the sergeant's stripes on his cuff, Sergeant O'Neil wears three pips on his epaulettes, which would indicate a much more senior rank and would not be worn together with the stripes.

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Factual error: The film depicts a clash between the 'Irish' Kelly gang and the 'English' police. Constable Fitzpatrick is depicted as an upper-class Englishman (and describes himself as British). In reality, Fitzpatrick and most of the other policemen who came into contact with the gang were as Irish as the Kellys.

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Show generally

Factual error: George Wigg MP wears an RAF tie. Wigg served in the Royal Tank Corps and the Army Educational Corps, but he was never in the RAF. Few men would wear a regimental tie to which they weren't entitled, least of all someone in the public eye, where it would be immediately picked up and ridiculed. Especially given this is set only 17 years after the war (and only just after compulsory National Service ended) at a time when most men were entitled to wear some sort of regimental tie and recognised fellow veterans by the design of their tie.

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Show generally

Factual error: When Detective Superintendent Fulcher takes the oath in the first trial he ends with "So help me God." This phrase is not used in British courts.

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Show generally

Factual error: The barristers at the first trial are wearing their gowns over shirtsleeves. Barristers are obliged to wear jackets when appearing in court.

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Show generally

Factual error: Detective Chief Superintendent Kier Pritchard wears silver tabs on his uniform collar. These are only worn by Assistant Chief Constables and above. Detectives almost never wear uniform in any case.

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Show generally

Factual error: Deputy Chief Constable Ray Hayward wears two rows of oak leaves on his cap peak. DCCs only wear one row.

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Show generally

Factual error: Almost none of the senior police officers wear the correct medal ribbons. Brian Moore and Pat Geenty wear the Order of the British Empire, which neither had. Geenty wears the General Service Medal, for military service in Northern Ireland, although he was never in the armed forces. Moore does not wear the Queen's Police Medal, which he was awarded in 2009. Both wear the Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2011, although it was not awarded until 2012. Andy Parker wears an unidentified ribbon (possibly intended to be the Queen's Police Medal, which he was awarded in 2010, but looking nothing like it) and the Golden Jubilee Medal, but does not wear the Diamond Jubilee Medal or the Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal to which he was also entitled. Mike Veale and Ray Hayward wear no medal ribbons at all, although both would be entitled to the Golden Jubilee Medal and Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (and Veale also to the Diamond Jubilee Medal after 2012).

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Season 5 generally

Factual error: The fact Colonel Younger is black and this may be an issue socially is implied several times (meaning the series acknowledges his ethnicity), but it never seems to be seen as surprising that a black man is a colonel in the British Army in the first place. While there were a small handful of mixed-race junior officers in the army in the First World War, there were no post-war black regular officers (it was actually against regulations at the time) and no black officer would hold such a senior rank until long after the Second World War.

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Season 5 generally

Factual error: Mosley is portrayed as forming the British Union of Fascists in 1929 or 1930. In fact, he formed the New Party in 1931. The party failed to win any seats in the 1931 general election (with Mosley himself losing his seat) and Mosley then formed the British Union of Fascists in 1932.

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