Saturday 28th November 11.00pm
The seventh season of the ‘Law & Order’ spin-off concludes. In the series finale, a teenage girl makes a false allegation of rape against two boys at her school, before driving her car into a crowd in a suicide attempt. The detectives are shocked to learn the teenager has bipolar disorder and has stopped taking her medication. Novak faces a moral dilemma as she prepares to prosecute the girl for her crimes.
Benson and Stabler investigate when teenager Jamie Hoskins alleges that two boys raped her in the toilets at her school. Questioned by police, Danny Morrison and Cameron Shaw insist that Jamie arranged the encounter and consented to the act. “Hooking up in school is a rush. She was into it,” says Danny. Benson is inclined to believe the girl’s side of the story until evidence emerges that she is lying.
Benson convinces Jamie to admit that she lied about the incident. “It was all my fault,” Jamie sobs. “I never meant to hurt anyone.” All three students are expelled from the school and Cameron Shaw’s father urges Novak to press charges against Jamie for making a false allegation. “If she’s not arrested, you’ll read about it in the newspaper,” he says. “White girl lies about being raped by a black boy and just walks away! They’ll be all over it.”
While Novak decides whether to press charges, Benson is informed that Jamie has driven her car into a group of pedestrians, injuring many and killing a 14-year-old girl. Cops at the scene report that Jamie swerved at the last moment but did not hit the brakes and was not wearing a seatbelt. “She was trying to kill herself,” Benson says.
At the hospital, Benson is stunned to learn that Jamie has bipolar disorder and has not been taking her medication. The doctor believes Jamie’s illness could account for her extreme, hyper-sexual behaviour at school. “Her parents have been out of the country,” Benson says. “Maybe she stopped taking her meds when they left.”
Jamie reveals that she ditched her drugs because she felt ‘cured’. She claims she was inspired to act by her idol, rock star Derek Lord, who preaches against psychiatry and the use of drugs. “He says you don’t need psychiatric drugs to make you feel better,” Jamie says. “And you decided to listen to Derek Lord instead of your psychiatrist?” asks Benson, shocked.
Cragen, meanwhile, knows that his team looks negligent for releasing Jamie hours before she drove into a group of bystanders. He is furious with Novak’s plan to let the girl off with a light sentence. “If you let her walk, your ass is on the line right next to mine,” he says. Novak pays a visit to the morgue to see the body of the girl Jamie killed. “I thought if I saw her, it might make it easier... putting a mentally ill girl in prison,” she tells Warner.
However, the case against Jamie is not as straightforward as it seems – especially when Derek Lord becomes personally involved and offers to pay her legal costs. While Novak worries that his star power will dazzle the jury, Huang believes the rock star is turning the case into a campaign platform. “Derek Lord is using this girl to push his anti-psychiatry agenda,” he says.
Derek exercises a huge amount of control over Jamie, who favours the rock star’s advice over that of her parents. “She’s totally infatuated with this guy, like everything he says is gospel,” Jamie’s dad says. When Novak learns that Jamie has once again stopped taking her meds, she has the judge commit the helpless teenager to a psychiatric ward. But can the trial proceed under these circumstances? And is Novak right to continue her prosecution of a mentally ill child?
