Hotpoint First Edition 1000 - is the contoller broken?

My Hotpoint is between 4 & 5 years old and has been brilliant until 2 days ago. 3rd wash cycle of the day and suddenly it stopped half way through. I manually moved the dial along and the machine started working again but then stopped a few minutes later. Now it will start the programme and fill with water and by turning the dial it will empty but it will not actually wash. Is this the contoller or something else? Can you help?