A BBC thriller based on the Climategate scandal which saw computer hackers target the University of East Anglia is to be screened next week.

The Trick tells the story of how Professor Philip Jones, director of climate research at UEA, found himself at the eye of an international media storm.

Eastern Daily Press: Victoria Hamilton as Ruth Jones in The Trick.Victoria Hamilton as Ruth Jones in The Trick. (Image: BBC)

Dubbed 'Climategate', thousands of emails and documents were stolen by hackers and were pounced on by climate change deniers.

It led to Norwich scientists receiving death threats and one of the most rigorous scrutiny processes in UK academic history, which later cleared them.

The one-off drama, which screens on October 18 on BBC One at 8.30pm, chronicles the unjustified persecution of Jones, played by Jason Watkins.

Eastern Daily Press: 'Global warming is what happens when the global carbon budget is out of balance,' says Asher Minns, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA Picture: Kieron Tovell'Global warming is what happens when the global carbon budget is out of balance,' says Asher Minns, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA Picture: Kieron Tovell

Asher Minns, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA said: "Ten years on you look at what is happening with the climate around us, and broadly there is a global acceptance that there is a climate emergency. If anything good came out of this terrible, stressful thing, it showed that we were right."