HM Courts & Tribunals Service has yet to publicly comment on the latest instalment of BBC1 drama Happy Valley, but we can’t imagine it will be altogether happy.

With Tommy Lee Royce, perhaps the baddest of all bad guys, coming to court for his sentencing in the part of a 2014 murder, one might have thought security would be tight. Royce is, after all, a prisoner with a record including three confirmed murders, one attempted murder, one confirmed rape and another likely rape, two kidnappings and an assault on a police officer occasioning grievous bodily harm.

Yet all looked a bit odd from the moment he stepped into court. For a start, this was the mysterious Greater Leeds Crown Court, which we have yet to find on a map. Its listings board showed an unlikely one case per courtroom – perhaps giving an indication why the backlog has grown so much.

As Royce’s hearing began, a kerfuffle in the public waiting area caused panic, allowing him to assault two security guards and clamber out of the dock. Which, oddly, wasn't glass-walled. He was then encountered by two more guards offering little resistance (no police, apparently, were allocated to the sentencing of one of Britain’s most dangerous men). Neither guard could apparently jump over a barrier or sprint more than 10 yards without wheezing.

Royce managed to leave by the front door of the court, where the nation’s media were conspicuously absent, and hotfoot it to get a change of clothes. 

He cycled off looking unrecognisable, but appeared to head down Leeds’ Vicar Lane, just a few blocks away from the city’s legal district. Might be worth keeping an eye out if you’re in the office this week.

None of which is to take away from what is unquestionably brilliant drama. After all, if Royce had been suitably constrained and flanked by police officers, it wouldn’t be half as exciting as whatever is to come next Sunday evening.

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