Christopher Eccleston and Julie Walters garnered the main acting awards as British TV productions won five International Emmys, including two for the BBC crime anthology Accused.
Accused, written and created by Jimmy McGovern, received the Emmy for best drama series at the 39th Annual International Emmy Awards ceremony at the Hilton New York Hotel. The anthology tells the stories of people accused of crimes as they sit in holding cells beneath the courtroom awaiting the verdict in their trials.
Accused originally wasn't even among the nominees in the drama category. But it ended up replacing another British crime show Sherlock after it was determined that the updated version of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries had also been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the US. The rules bar a program from being entered into the two Emmy competitions in the same year.
Eccleston, the former Doctor Who star, won the best actor award for his role in an episode of Accused, in which he played a financially stressed, lapsed Catholic plumber who's struggling with an adulterous relationship and coming up with the money to pay for his daughter's wedding. After praying to God, he finds a packet of 20,000 pounds in the back of a taxi, doubles his money on the roulette wheel, but ends up on trial after the windfall turns out to be forged notes.
