The Mafia With Trevor McDonald (ITV, 9pm)

YOU wouldn't think that Sir Trevor McDonald could be left speechless, but that was the case when the veteran newsman interviewed Michael Franzese, one of history's most successful Mafia men, for this new two-part series.

Franzese posed as a major Hollywood film producer, in the 1970s and 1980s, so he could launder large amounts of stolen money, and reveals he was making $10m a week at one point.

"That did make my face tweak," says 75-year-old McDonald, who spent three months travelling across the United States as he sought access to the secretive world of the Cosa Nostra.

When the law caught up with Franzese, he struck a deal with the FBI and served seven years in prison. He's now turned his back on the organisation, but his past continues to haunt him.

"All these horrible memories. One of his problems is that a lot of the people he ratted on don't believe the money's just disappeared," says McDonald.

He was knighted in 1999 for services to journalism and received the Bafta Fellowship in 2011 after retiring from presenting the ITV news in 2008, but confesses that his meetings with Mafia men still shocked him.

"You thought you knew what stories about the Mafia would be like, but confronted by the reality of what these people were telling you, it was much more extraordinary than you could've dreamed of. And the bluntness was amazing," adds McDonald, who retired from presenting the ITV news in 2008.

"Journalistically it's, 'Wow, thanks for telling me this', but it's absolutely shocking, the number of people they've killed," he says.

McDonald is a passenger in a car in New York's Little Italy with Michael Di Leonardo, nicknamed Mikey Scars, when the former high-ranking member of the Gambino crime family, who sent 80 people to prison, spotted two rival gang members roadside bar.

"It was the only moment where I thought I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time," admits McDonald. "I was scared by the fact that he was scared. He's a hard man, and if he's worried, then I suspect you should be too."

Given the Mafia live by a code of secrecy, McDonald credits the series producer and his team for achieving unprecedented access. "By the time I got there, I had the easy job of asking the questions," he says. "If I may make one boast about myself, I spend an enormous amount of time thinking how to structure these interviews to get people to just talk. We all have a touch of ego about life, and it's terribly nice for people to ask you what you've been doing, although (in this instance), what you've been doing is killing people."

Portillo's State Secrets (BBC2, 6.30pm)

AS a former Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Portillo is the ideal person to trawl through previously classified documents in the National Archives. Forthcoming episodes will feature information on everything from Hitler's personal medical files to how Special Branch spied on a future king, and even the establishment's views on the Rolling Stones. The man best-known for talking about railways now, begins his run by concentrating on crime and punishment, Britain's last hangman, the hidden history of notorious murderer Dr Crippen and people who sent private letters to the fictional Sherlock Holmes.

Person of Interest (Channel 5, 10pm)

THE show centres on former CIA agent John Reese (Jim Caviezel) who is recruited by reclusive billionaire Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) to help stop crime before it happens with the help of a supercomputer dubbed The Machine. The computer's location remains unknown, and it's constantly expanding its own artificial intelligence, but still spitting out crime clues. Reese is joined by ISA operative Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) to track down a naval officer Jack Salazar targeted by ruthless diamond smugglers.

Viv Hardwick