Episode
The Bill: Heavy Plant Crossing
Overview
Sgt. Matt Boyden organises a simple obbo to catch a gang stealing an excavator from a building site. The situation is made more complicated when another gang turn up carrying guns and a man is shot and abducted. As Boyden angrily collars his snout, PC Garfield and PC Quinnan volunteer to check the hospital. Garfield's girlfriend Jenny is about to leave for South America, and he is keen to ask her to marry him, however Quinnan gets word that Jenny actually has feelings for him. As Garfield tries to organise a romantic dinner, DS Beech poaches Boyden's snout, but he too is given bad information. Garfield's dinner plans are a disaster, but he manages to catch Jenny at the nurses' home. He pops the question, but she declines, as Dave Quinnan watches from the car outside.
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 15
- Episode
- Episode 41
- Air date
- 1999-07-08
Episode context
Heavy Plant Crossing is Episode 41 in Season 15 of The Bill. It aired on 1999-07-08.
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Episode 40: Pillow Talk
Worrell and Harker attend a deliberate hit and run. Quinnan and Garfield are tasked with tracking down the driver, Oliver Beaumann, who has allegedly run over his wife. When they transfer Beaumann to the nick, he passes out in the van. At the hospital a doctor asks one of them to stay, and while Garfield is happy at the idea of staying with Jenny for the night, Cryer demands Quinnan stays. Garfield is suspicious as Jenny is distant with him, and she later mentions to Quinnan she's doubtful over what Garfield wants long term. As they are distracted, Beaumann tries to escape, but Quinnan drags him back in. Beaumann then claims the husband of his wife's best friend is having an affair with his wife, and that he is armed with a gun intent on getting Beaumann out of the way. Quinnan is skeptical, but is quickly drawn into an armed siege.
Episode 42: Good Relations
Rising crime levels on the council estates sees Ch. Supt. Brownlow with two additional problems: a gang of over-zealous security guards patrolling the Copthorne Estate, and a ""mobile community liaison unit"" - a caravan done up by PC Reg Hollis. When these two initiatives rankle a local gang, the guards are attacked at one end of the estate and Hollis finds himself a hostage in a potentially explosive situation. Managing to get the potential arsonist Tony Leyton on side with tales of his past misdemenours, Hollis convinces Leyton to make a statement naming Danny McCormack as the ringleader in the attacks, but the rug is pulled out from under him when Brownlow cuts a deal with McCormack in order to preserve their public image.
More episodes from this season
Episode 39: Confessions Of A Zookeeper
Ch. Insp. Derek Conway organises a charity 'lock-up' in the Sun Hill cells - the prisoners for the night being himself, Insp. Monroe, famous boxer Dion Barrie and his manager Max Weir, and Paul Lake, the father of the sick little girl they are raising money for. When Monroe calls in sick, Ch. Supt. Brownlow volunteers to take his place. Sgt. Matt Boyden as custody sergeant must cope with having his superior officers in the cells, as well as a large group of drunken female rugby players. DS Feeney from Barton Street turns up to investigate Barrie for an attempted murder, but Boyden works out that his manager is the man responsible.
Episode 43: Big Fish
Skase is skeptical when an informant tells him a small-time dealer is in cahoots with a South American dealer. However, when his informant mentions a major contact, Skase gets his hopes up and pushes Deakin to conduct a raid. When the raid goes down, Skase is concerned when the cash briefcase is a dud, but he uncovers multiple kilograms of cocaine in the seller's briefcase. Skase and Deakin are paraded as heroes in the wake of the raid, but their glory is about taken from them by the National Crime Squad after they identify the seller as Ben Carter, who is wanted in several countries around the world. Events take a sinister turn when Skase's informant turns up dead, and things only gets worse when it appears the two NCS officers who took Carter to their station for questioning were actually imposters. With Deakin's rep in particular taking a major blow and the real NCS officers keen to make someone pay, the team are left scrambling to find their target and save the DI's career.
Episode 38: Borderline
A CID raid nets a gun which DS Beech believes could have been used in a recent shooting. New PC Cass Rickman is entrusted with the task of taking the gun to the lab for forensic testing, but when she stops the car to render assistance to a mugging victim, a young man reaches in and steals it. Borough Commander Mannion arrives to take charge of the investigation - Operation Loose Cannon. DS Beech's contacts come up with someone wanting to sell a gun, and he, Brownlow and Rickman organise their own operation to retrieve it, with Rickman posing undercover as the buyer. Rickman meets Leroy Jones, and Endean and Andrews, the original owners of the gun who want it back, but the operation is blown when Mannion's team almost raid the pub where the meeting is taking place. Rickman arranges to meet Jones later, and buys the gun back, but is attacked by Endean and Andrews. She fires the gun in the air, which scares them off, and alerts Brownlow, Mannion and Beech to her position. Leroy Jones is a
Episode 44: Taxed
PC Luke Ashton and PC Dale Smith chase a stabbing suspect onto an estate, but are separated and Ashton is paralysed with fear when confronted by the knife-wielding youth. Smithy is contemptuous of Ashton from that point on, who starts to feel that the rest of the relief is ganging up on him. The stabbing seems to be part of a racially-motivated vendetta between two families on the estate, the Wests and the Cords, but DS Daly and Sgt. Cryer work out that the Jasmine Allen's Estate Manager is behind the harassment. When Doreen West is abducted, the police find her in an empty council flat, but as Smithy pursues the Cord and his accomplice, Ashton stands frozen in fear. Stamp and Quinnan rescue Smith, who is furious with Ashton for not backing him up.
Episode 37: Foreign Body
A suspected armed robber dies after his car crashes during a chase with police. He is identified as Alain Savoie, a French national, and the body of an English woman is found in the boot of his stolen car. The woman is identified as Carol Archer, and scorch marks on her back indicate she was electrocuted in her bathtub, and Savoie was trying to dispose of the body. According to Carol's mother, Carol's husband Peter was in France looking for her. DI Chris Deakin, a fluent Francophone, suggests they send officers to interview Savoie's sister in France. DCI Jack Meadows insists on making the trip himself, and Deakin suggests he take DC Rod Skase with him. Once they are on the ferry, Meadows and Skase realise neither of them can speak French. With some trouble they manage to find their hotel, and despite the language barrier, Meadows clearly hits it off with the landlady Claudette. CID hear that Peter Archer is headed back to England, but he does not board the ferry, and Interpol reports t
Episode 45: Cracked Up
Ashton reels after being accused of cowardice by new boy Smithy. The team attend a group counselling session over Smithy's attack, but tensions only rise further between the uniform officers. After Ashton leaves the meeting, Rickman speaks up for him, but Ashton is convinced his colleagues have turned against him. Paired with Quinnan, Ashton investigates claims by a reformed dealer, Larry Moore, that a bag of drugs have been planted at his home. When a local youth accuses Moore of dealing again, Beech arrests him and comes down hard, but his methods leave Moore unhinged. After discovering his wife was responsible for the drugs, he abducts his young daughter. When Moore feels he has been backed into a corner, he snaps and takes horrific action, with a shell-shocked Ashton questioning his capability for the job in the wake of the day's shocking events.
Episode 36: Kiss Off
Vicki Hagen finds Eddie Santini's tickets to Amsterdam, and questions him about them, but he is evasive. DCI Pallister takes DS Fox off the Jessica Orton case after her accusations against Santini, but she decides to do some investigation of her own. Santini, meanwhile, acquires a gun and some Class-A drugs to plant in Ferguson's boss's house when DS Timpney and the Area Drugs Squad raid it. Fox stumbles upon the house and is captured by Ferguson. His boss Mr Sherman is displeased that Santini allowed a police officer to find them. When Area Drugs arrive at Sun Hill for the raid, CID realise that both Santini and Fox are in trouble. Sure enough, Ferguson's radio scanner warns him of the forthcoming raid and he locks Santini in the same room as Fox. The two argue, but are pulled apart when Santini attacks Fox. She manages to escape, and Sherman's men are intercepted by SO19. Back at Sun Hill, Fox realises the keys in Hagen's possession are Jessica Orton's - and she arrests Santini for m
Episode 46: Wedded Bliss
PC Smith and PC Rickman deal with a disturbance at a registry office, and DC Proctor and DC Holmes discover an ingenious immigration scam in which British lookalikes of Romanian illegals marry Irish women to gain UK residency. Smith and Rickman follow up a case of forged speeding tickets, and come across a mail holding centre run by Colin Briggs at his garden centre, where they discover a stash of Romanian passports. Undercover at the registry office, CID and Immigration arrest the 'Romanian Godfather', Ion Goga, behind the scam and his wife, Sheila Devlin.
Episode 35: Push It
Jessica Orton is brought in for questioning, but is released without charge. When she returns home, PC Santini is waiting for her, desperate to know if she grassed him up. They fight, and Santini hits Jessica, knocking her down the stairs and killing her. Realising her house is being watched, he escapes out the back. Vicki Hagen finds a set of keys under Santini's bed which she brings to the station to return to him.
Episode 47: Lucky Jim
Worrell and Garfield fail to catch a stolen 4x4 in pursuit, the latest in a long line of such vehicles being stolen, but luckily the vehicle is abandoned for them to analyse. Meanwhile, Carver and Harker intervene at a domestic where a man is being refused access to his daughter by his ex-wife. After talking to Carver, the woman invites him to a drink with her father, local car dealer Gerry Metcalfe. Carver meets Metcalfe's associate Samantha as they have a drink, and after having a meal, they go back to a hotel. The following morning, he discovers that Metcalfe's daughter has reported her ex-husband has abducted their child because Carver failed to make a meeting between the warring parents. Worse still, he discovers a £500 deposit in his account from Metcalfe, and that his associate Samantha is an escort who has skimmed Carver's cards. Using a rival car dealer for leverage, Carver sets out to nail Metcalfe without his "bribe" being exposed.