Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio has opened up on the lengths the show has gone to in order to make the upcoming sixth series.

Filming on the new run began in February but shut down a month later as the coronavirus pandemic sent the world into lockdown, scuppering plans for it to air on BBC One this autumn.

With new health and safety guidelines in place on set, the production got going again in September and filming has now wrapped, Mercurio revealed in an interview with This Morning.

"It's been pretty tough, to be honest with you," he said. "Firstly I've got to pay tribute to our brilliant cast and crew.

"We've been diligently and rigorously wearing masks the whole time, social distancing, sanitising any objects that pass between people, fogging spaces that we go into as well as having to take other steps such as changing scenes from interior locations to exterior locations.

"Some of our on-location shoots have been moved into the studio so that we were able to ventilate the spaces. There has been a lot that we've had to do."

He added: "We hope that these changes will be invisible to fans when they watch the series."

Series six, which introduces Kelly Macdonald as new AC-12 suspect DCI Joanne Davidson, will air on BBC One in early 2021.