Cast member Letitia Wright recalled that Steve McQueen said he chose to tell this story because "The window for our elders' stories to be told is closing. We can't allow them to pass away and become our ancestors without them seeing themselves, their culture and everything they've contributed to the country represented onscreen."
The BBC effectively gave Steve McQueen carte blanche for his series, including time for his cast to rehearse, unusual for the medium of television, given its time constraints.
Shaun Parkes found the experience of filming this so intense that he would frequently collapse into tears at the end of each working day.
The trial was highly significant in being the first judicial acknowledgment of racial prejudice in the Metropolitan Police, and it inspired other civil rights activists seeking to take on the legal establishment. It also resulted in the government changing procedures related to the empanelling of juries to make it more difficult for defendants to influence it.
The Mangrove restaurant closed for good in 1992. Shaun Parkes recalled visiting it in the early 1990s when he was a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.