Episode
The Bill: Badlands
Overview
DS John Boulton is determined to catch a pair of brutal thieves, and he is certain that local crook Mick Glover is one of them. Ignoring protests from Uniform, who already have Glover under surveillance, Boulton leads a disasterous raid on Glover's flat, which puts PCs Quinnan and Garfield's informant Janie in grave danger. When Quinnan and Garfield find Janie's flat on the Jasmine Allen estate vandalised, Quinnan pursues the suspects, but finds himself seperated from Garfield, who can only watch in horror as his friend is beaten and stabbed by a gang of youths.
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 15
- Episode
- Episode 13
- Air date
- 1999-03-02
Episode context
Badlands is Episode 13 in Season 15 of The Bill. It aired on 1999-03-02.
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Episode 12: Sleeping With The Enemy
Skase and Lennox enlist the help of Burnside as they investigate a series of robberies at local business conventions. Burnside is reluctant to admit why but he identifies their suspect through a tattoo described by a victim of theft, a former prostitute using the alias Victoria Smith. He later admits to Holmes she tied him up and left him in nothing but a raincoat while she robbed him during an undercover op when Burnside was a newly-promoted DC. Lennox and Skase go undercover at the latest convention, and while Skase pulls, he is forced to abandon his attractive companion at the revelation she is an innocent who was actually attracted to him. Lennox has better luck, but when he and his companion go back to the hotel room, she drugs him and steals his laptop. When the woman is found in hospital, having been attacked by one of her victims, Burnside launches a raid to arrest her and Smith.
Episode 14: Eyes Everywhere
With PC Quinnan in a critical condition in St Hugh's Hospital, the police descend on the Jasmine Allen estate, determined to catch those responsible. PC Garfield manages to identify most of the gang, and a young boy, Kevin White, bought in for questioning names them as the 'Sun Hill Massive'. Garfield and DS Boulton come to blows when Boulton denies any responsiblity for the attack on Quinnan. Acting on a tip-off, the police raid Mick Glover's flat again, finding he is responsible for the burgleries, and that his son Ben and Kevin White were the ones who stabbed Quinnan.
More episodes from this season
Episode 11: Under Duress
Boulton and Rawton attend the scene of a house fire, and not only does the chief identify the building as a brothel, he points at evidence that the girls were held hostage by the building owner. Hollis and Page attend when a girl is apprehended by shop security for stealing a jacket, and she admits to being a Turkish refugee who has been held against her will to work in the brothel. However, when Boulton identifies needle marks on her arms, he plays the brute to identify a friend of the girl's Maya, who he suspects started the fire to rescue the girls. Identifying a yellow sports car with black writing at the scene, suspected of being Maya's getaway car, and he soon calls around local brothels to identify a rival pimp who took Maya in. He identifies a pair of Turkish brothers, and when Rawton visits a potential witness, she finds herself in unexpected danger.
Episode 15: Yesterday's Hero
Tension between DS Boulton and PC Garfield over Dave Quinnan's stabbing reaches boiling point on an obbo with PC Hollis. Garfield explodes when pushed too far, and he headbutts Boulton, nearly breaking his nose. It's up to Reg to step in and help Garfield come to terms with his feelings of helplessness over the incident. PC Dave Quinnan, still at St Hugh's, resolves to help Juke, a fellow patient who claims the police have done nothing to find the person who stabbed him, although he soon comes to realise that Juke's wounds are self-inflicted.
Episode 10: Slinging Mud
Deakin is approached by a station cleaner who claims to have found £5000 in used notes under Proctor's desk. Proctor refutes knowledge of it, but timing couldn't be worse, as he is due to testify in a court case later in the day. The case is run by Meadows, but first their witness is subject to intimidation, then Meadows is stunned by late evidence of a bank account in his name containing £86,000 in laundered cash. Knowing another CIB enquiry could be detrimental to his career, bringing back memories of his demotion 7 years earlier, he enlists the help of his department to blow open the allegations and save his career. When a link is made to their prime witness, they enlist her help to identify the man at the centre of the conspiracy to frame Meadows and get the suspect cleared of charges.
Episode 16: On Air
Hagen and Santini find a shaken woman her home after an abandoned 999 call. Holmes spearheads the investigation when the victim reports a violent prowler tormented her about committing rape before fleeing without touching her, leaving Holmes at loggerheads with Carver when she reopens a prowler case investigated two years earlier, with Holmes suspecting their suspect is getting bolder. Meanwhile, Conway is preparing for a radio talk show Q&A, but when Holmes requests he make an appeal about the prowler attack, Conway is stunned by a call from a man who identifies himself as the suspect. As Deakin, Holmes and Carver hunt for their suspect, a victim comes forward and joins Conway on air. As she talks to her tormentor, Conway tries to rile the man, causing the victim to storm out.
Episode 9: Age Of Chivalry
Burnside is seconded to Sun Hill to catch a pair of serial rapists operating in the area. As Burnside tracks down a known sex offender, he grills him for his whereabouts, but a call soon comes in that there has been another attack. Consulting the victim, who got a good view of the suspect, Burnside leads to an undercover team to a restaurant and the victim identifies a waiter. As the man continues to shut down questions in interview, Rawton consults the man's parents, and they identify a work colleague who they feel is a bad influence on their son. Discovering the man's car matches the description identified by a victim, a claim is made that blows the case wide open. When the pair are bailed they slip surveillance, and one of them is found seriously assaulted.
This episode was broadcast out of production order - using the newer closing titles and fonts not officially introduced until later in the series
Episode 17: To Catch A Cobra
Burnside's failure to inform Sun Hill of a Crime OCCU stakeout on a local museum leads to Page and Harker blowing their cover. The group arrest three of the four robbers, but one is admitted to hospital for trying to swallow stolen gemstones. Meanwhile, Meadows sends Boulton on the trail of stolen war medals, but the robbery at the museum puts Boulton back on the trail of known villain, Atul Roy, who he hunted for a kidnapping two years earlier (Shades of Gray S13). To spite Boulton and Burnside, Roy's brother Amit leads a second raid on the museum. Forced to admit he has been running a 15-year-old informant, the boy tells them where to find the ringleader for the raid. As Amit is arrested in possession with the museum artifacts, Henderson tells them their informant has gone missing, forcing them to cut a deal for the boy's safety.
Episode 8: Murder, What Murder?
Garfield assists the River Police when a decapitated body is pulled out of the Thames. As he clears the scene, he recognises a member of the local press as a journalist he worked with on a recent case (Deep Secret S14), Carrie Winkler. While he doesn't divulge info on the body, Winkler shows him a suspicious camera in her paper's archive block. When Garfield declines to remove the camera, Winkler does, leaving a furious DC with the National Crime Squad confronting Deakin about an intricate surveillance operation to catch a notorious armed robber meeting with his banker to access £15 million of unrecovered cash from a series of robberies. Garfield is surprised when he identifies the body of the man through a pacemaker found post-mortem, but his next of kin are left delighted by the news, as the man was an abusive drunk. When Winkler resumes the NCS surveillance without permission, she reveals the robber's money man is registered to Garfield's body.
Episode 18: Weekends Are For Wimps
Conway is furious when Meadows asks him to cover for Brownlow due to a bout of flu. Determined to make it to Stamford Bridge for a game between Chelsea and West Ham, he is fuming when he is called in to take a sample for a rape case. To make matters worse, the victim drops the allegation before he arrives. Meanwhile, Hagen and Santini arrest a drunk driver for assaulting Hagen during a pursuit. As they prepare to bail him, Lennox recognises him as a suspect for a series of armed robberies. Conway tries to get on the case but Lennox calls in Meadows, who turns up sick but determined to sit in on the interview. Cryer and Harker investigate claims that an ex-con has been kidnapped by a retired Chief Superintendent, an old friend of Conway's. Enlisting Conway's help, Cryer confronts the ex-cop to get to the truth of the matter. With something clearly missing, it's the retired officer's daughter who supplies the link between Meadows and Conway's cases.
Episode 7: Pond Life
Meadows recruits Quinnan and Rawton to receive a notorious sex offender, Ray Ballantyne, from another division. However, the DCI's hopes of keeping the Ballantyne's identity a secret are quickly blown by a press leak. As a protest takes place outside the safehouse, Hagen receives a call in CAD that a local boy, Andy Donnelly, has gone missing. TSG are drafted in to take Ballantyne out of the house and back to Sun Hill, as the protest escalates into a low-scale riot. Meanwhile, Page and McCann interview Donelly's friend, he gives a vague description of a man seen with the missing boy that matches Ballantyne. As the protest shifts to Sun Hill, Ballantyne is interviewed about his involvement, and he confesses to seeing Donnelly and comforting him. As the boy is tracked down after hiding in an abandoned train, he makes a shock confession about his home life. Back at the station, as Rawton struggles to find a hostel for Ballantyne, a dramatic twist brings a final resolution to the case.
Episode 19: Piggy In The Middle
Ashton intervenes as a pair of masked men try to set fire to a house. Burnside is seconded from Crime OCCU to investigate, due to another arson with the same MO occurring on Stafford Row's patch. Meanwhile, Holmes is approached by a witness in the case of a vicious stabbing attack who has suddenly decided not to testify. It is soon revealed that the attempted arson attack victim is the brother in law of the witness, and that the other witness is the boyfriend of the woman hospitalised in the Stafford Row. With two out of three witnesses attacked, it's not long before Holmes is assaulted in a pub car park after a night out. An informant of Holmes reveals that stabbing suspect's brother, Kevin Butcher, has sparked a dealing war on the local estate, and Meadows is livid as uniform become subject to a series of attacks by Butcher's gang.