History Series / Broadchurch

** Jack's PaedoHunt subplot was to throw a misdirection into the investigation.
** In season 2, two with regards to what had happened to Lisa. [[spoiler:One is her phone registering in Plymouth, from where she could have escaped to France. Another one is the scene of Lee by the incarcerator. Turns out, her body was hidden in another grave.]]

** No judge would have ruled the defendant's confession as inadmissible for the reasons given [[spoiler: (Joe was beaten up by Ellie ''after'' he’d confessed to killing Danny, a fact that the prosecution would have been able to verify just by looking at the times on the police station CCTV footage, meaning that police brutality clearly wasn’t a factor in getting him to confess)]].

** Almost all of the case for the defence would have been inadmissible in court as [[AmoralAttorney Sharon Bishop]]’s entire argument was based on hearsay, irrelevant information, misleading statements and a witness committing perjury. [[spoiler:Joe wouldn't have been acquitted of the murder charge in real life because of this.]]

** The same goes for the Sandbrook case, in which literally everyone involved is found to be lying about ''something.''

* InformedAttractiveness: Beth's attractiveness is what sells the newspaper editor to publish the story about the murders.

* IllKillYou: In the series 2 finale, [[spoiler: Ellie]] says this to [[spoiler: Joe]] after [[spoiler: he's been acquitted.]]
-->'''Ellie:''' [[spoiler: You are leaving and you are never coming back. And you will never see either of your children again. If you try and see them, if you follow them, if you go to their schools, if you contact them in any way, I will kill you.]]

* MutuallyAssuredDestruction: [[spoiler: Lee and Claire with Ricky]] regarding the Sandbrook case. [[spoiler: If they told the police what he did to Lisa, he would claim that Lee murdered her, and if he went to the police about it, the would claim that he murdered Pippa.]]

* SeekingSanctuary: Claire does this at Reverend Paul's church after [[spoiler: Lee finds out that she was pregnant and aborted their baby while he was in custody, and beats her up.]]

* BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible: Half the people in Broadchurch harbor a BigSecret and need their alibis or other extenuating information dragged out of them, especially Susan. This very nearly drives Hardy to distraction, as every single time he points out that they are trying to catch ''a killer'' and don't care about anything else.

* PrisonersDilemma: Lee and Claire Ashworth change their story so often (Claire once gave three different versions of what happened the night of the murder in the ''same conversation'') that Hardy knows one or both of them is lying, but he doesn't know who is lying to protect whom. [[spoiler: After Hardy tells Lee about Claire's abortion and he beats her up for it, Claire decides to return the evidence she stole and start talking.]]

* PrisonerDilemma: Lee and Claire Ashworth change their story so often (Claire once gave three different versions of what happened the night of the murder in the ''same conversation'') that Hardy knows one or both of them is lying, but he doesn't know who is lying to protect whom. [[spoiler: After Hardy tells Lee about Claire's abortion and he beats her up for it, Claire decides to return the evidence she stole and start talking.]]

** Season 2 also has a repeated flashback of Alec and Claire lying on a bed, looking at each other. Each time more of the flashback is shown, finally revealing that [[spoiler: they didn't sleep together; he went with her when she aborted her and Lee's baby.]]

* PedophilePriest: [[spoiler:Teased with Reverend Paul, especially when he's spotted touching a boy's knee, but he's ultimately not.]]

** The defense lawyers in Series Two, who bizarrely appear to be positively gleeful about the prospect of making a clearly guilty man a KarmaHoudini. It also seriously doesn't help that the entire trial is absurdly slanted in their favour, with the judge allowing them to go off on all kinds of wild speculations without a shred of evidence at the same time the prosecution is constantly admonished to stick to the facts.

* HotForTeacher[=/=]HotForStudent: Jack and his music pupil — he was jailed for sleeping with her one month below the age of consent and later married her after he got out of prison.

* FictionalCounterpart:
** ''Wessex Police'' polices the county of Dorset in the series, replacing the real life ''Dorset Police''.
** DI Hardy's ex-wife works for the fictional ''South Mercia Police'' in Series 2. It polices the unspecified county where Sandbrook is located.

* FireForgedFriends: Alec and Ellie are at odds when the show begins, though they slowly start to get along over the course of the case. In Season 2, they're not on good terms and go right back to arguing, though they do their jobs well and are shown to genuinely care about each other. By Season 3, while they still bicker a bit, they have a much tighter, less dysfunctional bond and a far more effective partnership.

* GoodAllAlong: Downplayed in series 2. [[spoiler:Lee Ashworth turns out to be innocent of the murder of Lisa Newbury, who was killed by Pippa's father. However, he did kill Pippa Gillespie to cover up her erroneous assumption that he had been the one to kill Lisa, albeit extremely reluctantly and under Claire's instructions. This turns their assumed relationship on its head, as he was being blackmailed by Claire and not the other way around.]]

** Inverted in the first series finale, when questioning [[spoiler:Joe Miller]]: Hardy is calm, collected, and relieved to have the case behind him, Ellie [[spoiler:tries to beat her murderous husband to death and has to be literally dragged from the room, screaming]].

** In season 1, [[spoiler:Beth initially doesn't want to keep the baby, but later changes her mind.]]
** Averted in season 2 with [[spoiler:Claire who had an abortion while her husband Lee was in custody. When he finds out, he beat the crap out of her, then leaves her for good. Rev Paul surprisingly does not judge her. She's not exactly a "good girl" by any stretch of the imagination, but she's not really judged for having had an abortion either (except by Lee)]].

** The defense lawyers in Series 2, who bizarrely appear to be positively gleeful about the prospect of making a clearly guilty man a KarmaHoudini. It also seriously doesn't help that the entire trial is absurdly slanted in their favor, with the judge allowing them to go off on all kinds of wild speculations without a shred of evidence at the same time the prosecution is constantly admonished to stick to the facts.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Taken up to eleven and crosses the line several times in series 2, to the point where stories abounded about British viewers having to explain to friends and relatives overseas who were watching the show that ''that's not how the British legal system actually works''.