The writings of GF Newman have for the past thirty years or so helped sharpen the cutting edge that has both shaped our increasingly pluralistic society and kept it better informed. He has enraged politicians and policemen; judges and prison officers; doctors and social workers, having exposed their tardiness, indifference, incompetence and corruption. His novels such as SIR, YOU BASTARD and YOU NICE BASTARD in the 70s challenged readers to think the then unthinkable of our police institution: that it was endemically corrupt. He acted as an effective gadfly to the police with subsequent writing, forcing them to examine themselves. In 1978 his epoch-making quartet of films for BBCTV, LAW AND ORDER, caused politicians to ask questions in the House of Commons about the state of the criminal justice system, and there was Government pressure put on the BBC not to show the films again or sell them abroad. Nor did they. The quartet of films remained on the banned list for the next 30 years, until released on DVD in 2008. Following the only screening of the fourth film the Prison Officers Association instantly banned the BBC from filming in British prisons. LAW AND ORDER subsequently spawned the huge hit American version, making it the most successful television brand ever.

In 1982 the Attorney General warned director Max Stafford Clark and the Royal Court Theatre management not to go ahead with the production of Newman’s OPERATION BAD APPLE, about a massive investigation into police corruption, while an Old Bailey judge subsequently told a jury in a major police corruption trial not to see the play. For the first time in its history the theatre had ticket touts outside. THE NATION’S HEALTH, his quartet of films for Channel 4, caused a storm of controversy and threats from doctors, one of whom told Newman with Mengelean menace, after a provocative lecture he had delivered at Oxford University, how he’d like him as a patient for two weeks!

Throughout the 80s his books variously speculated on J Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, being deeply involved in criminal acts, THE LIST; the CIA’s involvement in the death of President Kennedy, THE MEN WITH THE GUNS and the British Government’s ‘shoot to kill’ policy in Northern Ireland, THE TESTING GROUND. In the early 90s his last novel, CIRCLE OF POISON, anticipated GM crops and their disastrous consequences.

Inadvertently he managed to anger journalists with his BBC film HERE IS THE NEWS, and got sued by one of them! To this day the film remains on the BBC’s banned list. His three political films FOR THE GREATER GOOD directed by Danny Boyle in 1990 examined the doings of politicians and civil servants and found them wanting. BLACK AND BLUE, the film he wrote and produced for BBC1 in 1992 explored racism in the police force and caused the sort of controversy that surprised even Mr Newman. There was a storm of protest about it from senior policeman and politicians. It was the most successful film in the Screen One season, gaining both highest audience and audience appreciation, especially among black viewers. Ironically, he got sued by a black writer who accused him of plagiarism. He spent the next five years defending the action, which he won, after a four-week trial, when a High Court Judge completely vindicated him – the genesis for his hugely successful JUDGE JOHN DEED series.

In 1992 he was given the BAFTA Writer’s Award for a body of work.

In 1994 Mr Newman wrote and produced THE HEALER, a two-part drama for BBC1,that won a BAFTA Best Drama Award, as well as Best Actor for the lead player. In 1995 he directed a short film story, WOE TO THE HUNTER which won ‘best film’ in Malta 1997.

In 1999 he created, wrote and produced the 90 minute pilot episode of JUDGE JOHN DEED with Martin Shaw, Jenny Seagrove, Colin Salmon and Donald Sinden. Over the subsequent eight years he has written and produced, through his company One-Eyed Dog, another 26 films in the series, two of which he also directed. Even one of these, dealing with the MMR controversy and challenging the government’s assertions, has found its way onto the BBC’s banned list. He’s currently preparing the 9th series of JUDGE JOHN DEED as well as 2 X 90 films of LAW AND ORDER (2009); plus THE HEALER series; planning his next novel, THE EXORCIST and attempting to re-introduce the single play strand with a series of 6 low-cost television dramas by different writers, CONTEMPORARY VOICES. He’s also preparing films for cinema release: FLOWERS FOR MRS HARRIS, set in 50s Paris and London; OUT OF THE DARK, set in Paris and Mauthausen, Germany; FATAL EMBRACE set in Wales in 1805, none of which he’s written, and BANJO BOYS, a modern police thriller set in Glasgow and London. Meanwhile, he has formed a dramatic networking internet company and is about to launch www.exodus169.com

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, his latest novel, is a fictional history of crime (part 1) from the Festival of Britain to Mrs Thatcher’s election. Here the very nasty real criminals and politicians of the period interact with his fictional family, as their story, continuing through a second novel, plots a course over the next fifty years.

He lives and works between London, Edinburgh and Gloucestershire where, with his long-term partner, he’s built a completely ecological house. He’s currently building an interactive internet business, where he sees an exciting convergence with television taking place.