A spokesman for the National Detective's Forum has described the recent Eastenders plot lines as ‘damaging to their profession’. Viewers have recently been gripped by the mystery surrounding who was responsible for Albert Square baddie Archie Mitchell’s murder. But the police are less than pleased with the character DC Deanne Cunningham’s – played by actress Zoe Henry – methods. "It is frustrating to see our trade portrayed in such a bad manner,” Alan Kalbfell, a City of London detective inspector and spokesman for the National Detectives Forum told the Telegraph. "EastEnders is watched by a broad range of people, from young to old, and they will think this is how detectives operate. It's not.
"There is no doubt this is damaging to our profession,” he added. “There is no way that 99.9 per cent of people doing our job would dream of discussing an ongoing case with people on the street if it could prove detrimental to the case. Yet EastEnders have no problem showing this. It makes us look unprofessional."
However, a spokeswoman for the soap has insisted they had consulted with police about how characters should be portrayed. "I'm sorry if we have offended real life detectives but this is heightened fiction and all the things we show might not always represent real life,” they explained. "We always have a police consultant on shows like this that we go to before casting."
In a shock twist, during Friday night’s live episode it was revealed that Stacey Slater was Archie Mitchell’s murderer.
