Factual error: There is absolutely no way that the police officers sent to arrest Mickey and his team would be armed. In the UK, a police officer would only carry a gun if they had clear evidence that their target was armed, and even then, the Armed Response Squad would be called in. Mickey and his team are white collar criminals with no history of violence and have never been known to carry or use weapons. They'd be arrested by unarmed police, just like almost everyone else.
Other mistake: As we know, given the shenanigans surrounding the abortive raid on the Millennium Dome diamond exhibition in 2000, if the authorities suspected that there was to be an organised raid on the Star of Africa exhibit, it would have been replaced with a paste replica.
As One Flew Out of the Cuckoo's Nest, One Flew In - S4-E1
Character mistake: Near the end of the episode Danny refers to the money they have stolen, saying "Stacie is sitting next to half a million big ones." Anyone familiar with grifter slang knows a "big one" is a thousand dollars (or pounds, etc.) - certainly Danny Blue would know that. He just said that they have half a billion dollars in their hands. Not a mistake Danny Blue would make.
Factual error: During this episode, Detective Sergeant Terri Hodges wears two blouses: one red and one beige. They show too much cleavage for a female police officer. If she showed up for duty dressed like that, she'd be sent home to change or out to a shop to buy a less revealing top.
Return of the Prodigal - S5-E1
Factual error: Morgan attaches explosive blood bags to Emma and Sean in order to fool Neil Ryder into thinking he has killed them. He attaches them to their skin, covering them with a single layer of clothing. When they go off, they are going to hurt. Emma and Sean would be badly bruised, and after they have finished playing possum, they would be in agony, but they show no effects at all. He cannot be using a reduced charge in the bags, or they wouldn't have enough strength to punch a hole in their clothes.
Factual error: Albert Stroller goes before the parole board, is approved, and released on the same day. That is impossible. The parole board will meet, interview the prisoner, then take depositions from other interested parties. If they approve parole, they will then pass their recommendation on to the Home Office who will approve or decline it. All this takes three or four days at least, so there is no way for Stroller to be out on the street to meet the bent judge right away.
Return of the Prodigal - S5-E1
Factual error: There is absolutely no way prison visitors would be allowed into the cell of the prisoner they are visiting - they would not even be allowed into any part of the prison except for the visiting room. This is nothing to do with the guards going easy on Albert - they would be sacked on the spot for such a blatant and highly visible breach of prison rules.
Return of the Prodigal - S5-E1
Plot hole: Emma Kennedy gets into the morgue and coroner's office when she is wheeled in on a gurney sealed in a body bag. Mickey distracts the morgue attendant so she can get out of the bag and go to the coroner's filing room. All well and good, but what happens when the attendant goes back into the morgue after Mickey leaves and sees the empty body bag on the gurney? There is no indication that Emma gets back into the body bag and there is no reason for her to do so.
New Recruits - S5-E2
Factual error: Knocking out fit, healthy adults by pumping an anaesthetic gas into a large, open room in which they are sitting is an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to do. In order to do so, you'd have to know everything about them - age, weight, medical history, and so on. Killing them? Easy. Use cyanide gas. Knocking them out for a few hours? Impossible. Incidentally, why is it that the next morning when the grifters reveal their plan, nobody talks to the guards about what happened?
Plot hole: The cable Emma dangles from is secured to a safe deposit box by a powerful electromagnet rigged up by Ash. When he turns off the power, which he will have to do (they can't leave the cable and magnets in place!), the whole rig will drop to the floor, setting off the alarms. Even under tension, it would be impossible to wind in the cable and magnet fast enough to stop it dropping, and there is no sign of any sort of mechanism that would allow them to try to do that anyway.
Character mistake: While investigating the "robbery" at the art gallery, DS Rivet enters the sterile crime scene without wearing gloves. He not only picks up a vital piece of evidence - a discarded receipt - with bare hands, he allows the salesperson in the shop it came from to handle it, too. Not only has he hopelessly contaminated the crime scene, he has made an important physical artifact useless as evidence.
Factual error: Albert and Emma pose for phony wedding photographs in front of a green chromakey screen in order to have a new background created on computer. However, Emma is holding a garland of flowers surrounded by green foliage. You can't have anything green in the foreground when using green chromakey as it will drop out too and become part of the superimposed background.
Suggested correction: "Green screen" chromakey can be set to very fine tolerances. The garland of flowers Emma is holding is a much darker green than the chromakey curtain behind them and could easily be incorporated into the completed composite photograph.
Plot hole: The team constantly has fake stories about them on news sites, so that when posing as businessmen/investors etc, the mark can look them up on the internet and find out more about them. Obviously, they have a few fake news sites of their own. The problem is persuading the mark that this is genuine. Many of their marks are bankers and businessmen, who would look for reports on legitimate financial/newspaper sites, rather than some random news site they had never heard of before.
Factual error: Albert's release papers show he was born on 3rd June 1933. However, in the season 4 episode "Getting Even", his time in the US Air Force fighting in Europe in WW2 is discussed at length. Given VE Day was in May 1945, that would have made him 11 (at the very oldest) at the end of WW2: impossible to have served in this timeframe. That doesn't even include the half year of USAF training he would have undergone. The youngest soldier to fight for the US was 12: Albert would have been 10 and a half.
Continuity mistake: During the scene when Mickey walks into the urinals trying to steal the videotape, he has the phone in his hand calling the switchboard. He then puts it into his hand and turns the taps on. He washes his hands and leaves the urinals without the phone in his hand. Then, in the next shot, he walks through the door with the phone in his hand and puts it into his pocket. (00:11:00)
Continuity mistake: When Mickey seduces the MI5 agent, when she says to him, "You know she wanted to screw you?", Mickey has his hands on his hips. However, in the covert video recording of that same meeting (shown at the end of the episode), Mickey now has his arms crossed at the same point she makes that comment. (00:32:44 - 00:53:10)
Factual error: The guys supposedly stole $5million. The largest US bill is $100. This means there would be 50,000 bills. $5million weighs 110lb. They would not have got that into a guitar case, far less Albert being able to carry it that easily.
Factual error: Albert's release papers show he was sentenced to 2 years' imprisonment at the county court. This is completely incorrect: he would have been sentenced at a Crown Court given his was a criminal offence. County courts are strictly for civil cases, not criminal ones. Additionally, "fraud" is not the offence under which he would have been convicted. (00:49:52)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the episode, the final glass on the tray shifts position. First, it's directly at the front of the tray in the middle, but then it shifts to being on the left-hand side. The position of the cork and the foil also shifts. (00:57:44)
New Recruits - S5-E2
Other mistake: When Mickey first opens the newspaper to show the article on Fielding and Wood, in fact the article just repeats the same first three paragraphs of text again and again. (00:01:51)
