As a deaf person Rose Ayling-Ellis has, until now, had a difficult road with her acting career.

That changed with screenwriter Catherine Moulton. Her BritBox suspense series “Code of Silence,” streaming Thursday, was made specifically with Ayling-Ellis in mind.

Deaf and able to talk, use sign language and read lips, Alison Woods (Ayling-Ellis) is hired by the Canterbury police in “Code” to watch surveillance footage they’ve made of suspected thugs and robbers and reveal their conversations.

However, Alison gets hired at a local pub and finds she can spy from behind the bar. Despite being warned to keep her distance for her own personal safety, she continues to get involved. Particularly with a brooding guy (Kieron Moore) who should have a ‘Warning: Danger’ sign on his forehead.

“I’m partially deaf and I have been since childhood, so I picked up lip reading naturally,” Moulton began in a joint interview with Ayling-Ellis on Zoom from London. “After I had lip reading lessons, I understood how much work lip readers are doing, piecing together lots of different clues.

“It made me think that lip readers are detectives. And there really should be a crime show, a detective show, with the lip reader the investigative main character.”

For the script she collaborated with Ayling-Ellis. “Because Rose obviously has a different experience of deafness to me.”

What propels Alison to ignore the police, risk being murdered?

“Alison not listening to the police,” Ayling-Ellis said, “mostly comes from her frustration of being a deaf person in a society that decides her destiny, decides her future, decides what she should be. When she really feels, ‘Actually I can do so much more than what people think I can do.’

“That is what drives her to take it too far and make her a bit reckless. She’s doing it because she’s so frustrated at not being heard.”

“Code,” already renewed for S2, has made a huge difference in Ayling-Ellis’s life.

“I’ve been acting for about 14 years now. I started when I was 16. Back then, I didn’t really think it would be a career for me, because I didn’t see anyone deaf doing this.

“Initially, I didn’t have an agent. I got all my jobs through Facebook, from Deaf Actors UK. So when I say it took me 14 years to get to this point, yeah, I’m gonna pat myself on the back.”

What does she want this series to convey about being a deaf person?

“I want people to see how many stories that deaf people can tell. Each deaf person in the program is different from each other.”

An ASL version of “Code of Silence” S1 will also premiere July 24 on BritBox.