Viewers of ‘Outlaws’, the new BBC3 drama about criminal defence solicitors, may feel they have seen Ray Emmett-Brown, who is excellent as the trainee Theo Gulliver, before.


He has appeared in ‘Judge John Deed’ and before that in ‘Prime Suspect’. Film parts include playing a camp hairdresser in ‘Blow Dry’, alongside Alan Rickman.



But what audiences are highly unlikely to know is that he is also a barrister, having taken a law degree at Guildhall University in London between 1996 and 1999 and passed the bar vocational course (BVC) at the Inns of Court School of Law in 2002.



When ‘Blow Dry’ came out in 2000, it was not the success it was expected to be – despite being backed by Miramax. University friends told him to qualify as a lawyer, arguing that he could always go back to acting. But filming commitments meant he fell behind on the BVC, having to rely on letters from production companies asking for him to be given dispensation.



When he passed the course, he admits he was in ‘a make-or-break situation’ – £13,000 in debt and with agents beginning to question his commitment.



Having met his partner at law school – she is a prosecution barrister – and had a daughter, he felt it was time to put his legal qualifications to proper use.



A friend told him that Rodney Warren & Co, the Eastbourne-based criminal defence practice run by Criminal Law Solicitors Association director Rodney Warren, was looking to recruit.



‘It was great, I had dreadlocks at the time but they did not see it as a problem,’ he says. ‘The firm knew I was an actor and wanted to carry on, although I did tell them it would be mostly small parts that would only take me out of the office for three or so days.’



Mr Emmett-Brown joined the firm and embarked on getting his police station accreditation.



But he then got a call from his agent about a production called ‘Brief Lives’, the working title for what would become ‘Outlaws’.



‘When I was told about the role, I thought I really want this – this is my life, so I have got to do it,’ he explains. ‘The situation was so easy for me – the language was the language I used at work.’



Before his agent’s call, Mr Emmett-Brown says he had reached an agreement with his partner that he would ‘knock the acting on the head’.



‘You can only take so much rejection, and I had an opportunity with Rodney Warren that I did not want to mess up,’ he says.



The call telling him that he had got the role was, he admits, something he had waited for years to hear. ‘When they talk about being a lead in a programme, that could mean being a lead in a cast of 15 regulars,’ he says. ‘When you and someone else are carrying the show, that is something else.’



Filming finished this summer, and Mr Emmett-Brown has since auditioned for a film starring Jennifer Aniston. You might think that this would spell the end of his nascent legal career but Mr Emmett- Brown insists that he will continue in some capacity and that he still wants to obtain his police station accreditation.



He acknowledges there will be scenes in ‘Outlaws’ that will prompt criminal lawyers to throw up their hands and say ‘you can’t do that’.



‘I am sure there are scenes where Rodney Warren will disagree with what is shown,’ he concedes. ‘But my job was to bring truth to the scenes, not to advise on the legal procedure.



‘It’s not a documentary, it’s a view of the criminal justice system and it’s told with dramatic licence.’