Episode
The Bill: Chasing the Dragon
Overview
D.S. Roach spots a drug deal taking place on the Rochester Estate, but he, Carver and Dashwood fail to catch the dealers. P.C. Haynes and P.C. Ramsey spot the escaping car in their panda and give chase, but the dealers' car hits a little girl before crashing into a skip. Haynes loses one of the suspects when obstructed by some punks, but the driver of the car, Mickey Squire, is arrested. With Burnside on leave, Ch. Insp. Conway allows Ramsey and Haynes to continue with the case. Ramsey is pleased as he thinks it may get him back into C.I.D. He and Haynes play good-cop/bad-cop to get a confession, and Haynes goes undercover at a party to find the escaped passenger and the main drug supplier. C.I.D. raid the supplier's luxurious apartment and discover a huge amount of drugs and stolen goods in his garage. P.C. Melvin and W.P.C. Brind attend a fracas at a laundrette. Melvin slips on some soap, leaving Brind to take charge.
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 4
- Episode
- Episode 25
- Air date
- 1988-10-11
Episode context
Chasing the Dragon is Episode 25 in Series 4 of The Bill. It aired on 1988-10-11.
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Episode 24: Blue for a Boy
W.P.C. Martella and P.C. Edwards are on the beat, and intervene when they find a man arguing with a young mother. D.C. Dashwood goes to meet a snout, and is nearly run over by the man Martella and Edwards questioned before. The woman, Brenda Knight says he has abducted her baby, but claims she doesn't know him. Burnside is suspiscious, and puts the pressure on Brenda until she admits that the man who took the baby is Sam Rice, who paid her £2000 to bear his surrogate child, which she then refused to hand over. After questioning Rice's wife, W.P.C. Ackland finds him at the hospital with the baby who is in good health.
Episode 26: The Coop
P.C. Edwards and W.P.C. Ackland are on their lunch break, and they warn a man for flying a model helicopter too close to the road. They then investigate a terrible smell coming from a nearby property, and discover a shed full of the carcasses of battery hens. The smell is making Edwards sick, and he wants to get out and report it to the RSPCA. As he and Ackland are leaving, they are taken hostage by the deranged shed-owner armed with a shotgun. Sgt. Peters goes to look for them after dealing with the model helicopter crashing into a house. Peters, along with P.C. Stamp and P.C. Melvin dive for cover as the man starts firing his gun, but he is overpowered and arrested.
More episodes from this season
Episode 23: They Say We're Rough
Viv and Ken go to an army surplus store that seems to be being supplied off the back of a lorry. Van used to deliver the gear was nicked from Yorkshire. 2 redcaps (who don't think much of police) turn up to collect squaddies. Cryer doesn't think they are kosher. Cryer wants someone for a p.a. job at local school and asks Ken to buy a flying jacket. An ice-cream van and a car cause a traffic snarl-up near the station. Roach sends a traffic warden to sort it out. Hollis is also sent out to deal with it. After walking around the block, Hollis comes back to find part of a funeral has now joined the bigger traffic jam.
Episode 27: The Quick and the Dead
Sgt. Peters attends a physical fitness evaluation, but does not do too well. P.C. Ramsey and P.C. Frank gives chase when they witness a robbery. The robbers escape, but they manage to nick the driver, who insists his car was hijacked. Ramsey interrogates the boy, but Ch. Insp. Conway intevenes when Ramsey's heavy-handed approach becomes apparent. Conway releases the boy when he admits he was on his way to a job interview - as a male stripper. W.P.C. Ackland investigates the theft of a cat's gravestone, and finds it in the elderly cat-owner's rest home. A corpse goes missing when an undertaker's van is stolen by yobs, but P.C. Melvin tracks it down. Ramsey is giving everyone else a hard time about their fitness tests as he think's he's the fittest guy at the station, but when it comes to his test, he cannot sit it due to high blood pressure.
Episode 22: Running Late
W.P.C. Brind is late for parade, and misses a warning to the uniform relief to stay away from the Dock Industrial Estate, where C.I.D. and a P.T.17 team are awaiting a security van robbery. While on foot patrol, Brind chases a young girl onto the estate and into the middle of the operation. Burnside stops a suspiscious van, but it turns out to be full of fish. Brind is yelled at by Burnside and Sgt. Cryer, but she has her suspiscions about the girl, Jane, and her family. Meanwhile, Burnside realises the security van visits the estate twice, and he races back with all the armed officers he can muster, just in time to catch the robbers. Brind returns to Jane's flat where she discovers a bedroom full of nicked goods. She arrests Jane's mother, who turns out to be one of Burnside's snouts.
Episode 28: Witness
P.C. Ramsey and P.C. Smith are looking after a witness in a court case. Ramsey is amused that the witness, Andrew Pike, has a high opinion of the police and is applying to become a special constable. Ramsey gets bored at the flat, and convinces Pike to have a day out at the dog races. At the track, Ramsey throws a drunk out of the toilets, and Pike takes offence to his handling of the situation and threatens to report him. Smith goes to get a cuppa and Ramsey is watching the race. Pike disappears, and they manage to rescue him just in time. P.C. Edwards is in court, testifying in the case of an assault on a woman. His notes end up in the toilet and the case is dismissed as not proven.
Episode 21: Trouble and Strife
P.C. Haynes and P.C. Ramsey attend a domestic where a pregnant woman, Joanna Mancini, has been beaten by her husband with a bike chain. As Haynes and Ramsey try to calm the Mancinis down, Joanna drives her husband's car into a wall, and he retaliates by dropping appilances like her sewing machine, television and vacuum cleaner out of the window. Ramsey breaks into the house, but the husband has disappeared. Ramsey climbs into the loft to look for him, and Antonio jumps him, causing them to fall through the ceiling. When Haynes and Ramsey go to arrest Antonio, Joanna attacks them. Both of them are arrested for assaulting police officers, but as they are being lead out, the Mancini's teenage son arrives...
Episode 29: Here We Go Loopy Lou
Bob. Claire and Taffy investigate the report of a man carrying a cross which is found hanging from a crane. They come across a lady driving a car with a small white dog on her knee which is knocked down by a truck after escaping from the car. Taffy swims across a canal after a religious nutter who tries to strangle Bob while thinking he is Christ.
Episode 20: A Dog's Life
Taffy is trying to find someone to form a syndicate to buy ½ share in a greyhound which turns out to be stolen. Reg is keen on joining Taffy in syndicate. He is also very knowledgable about the dogs. Flytipping increases. Ramsey is asked to talk to his brickie mate. Mate says there is a war on with flytippers. New person is tipping all over the place and council can't accept quiet backhanders any more. Haynes and Ackland investigates vandalism at a renovation. Asks claimant about flytipping. Mother of one of the suspects comes with him to the station. Asbestos is involved in latest tipping. Other boy involved in vandalism has been beaten.
Episode 30: Stop and Search
Sgt. Cryer introduces two special constables who will be joining the relief: Mary Kilnair and Brian Defoe. While on patrol with P.C. Edwards, Kilnair is pricked by a junkie's needle, there is grave concern she may have been infected. A man arrives at the station to confess to the murder of his wife - thirty years previously. D.C. Carver, and new D.C. Tosh Lines, investigate. A lawyer meets with the station top brass (Brownlow, Conway and Frazer) to discuss her client's claim of being stopped and searched thirteen times in two weeks. Lines recognises the M.O. from his last nick - several black men giving the same name and address whenever they are stopped by police. D.S. Roach asks Insp. Frazer out on a date, but Burnside finds out and makes fun of him.
Episode 19: Community Relations
P.C. Melvin and P.C. Ramsey are in a garden shed doing an obbo on a garage believed to contain with stolen motorbikes. Ramsey is winding Melvin up about being a Christian, when a ball is kicked through the window. The owner of the shed gets into a violent row with his family, and while Melvin and Ramsey are dealing with the domestic at the house, they miss the suspect arriving at the garage. Ch. Insp. Conway attends a meeting at the Town Hall with residents of the Jasmine Allen Estate, but the meeting degenerates into arguments and slanging matches. P.C. Smith brings in a violent prisoner from the estate who was high on cocaine, but Sun Hill faces a death in custody when the man dies of an overdose shortly after arrival. With a riot brewing outside, Insp. Frazer must convince the man's father to tell the mob to blame the drugs, not the police.
Episode 31: Spook Stuff
W.P.C. Martella and P.C. Stamp take an American woman who has been caught shoplifting into custody. She is very insistent that the police contact her husband who is staying in a hotel. The husband, meanwhile, is reporting the theft of his briefcase from their hotel room. D.I. Burnside is warned off the case by a Special Branch officer and a C.I.A. agent, who are waiting for the man to sell top-secret papers. D.S. Roach is having money troubles, but when one of his snouts offers to sell him the secret documents, Roach and Burnside use the situation to clear up Roach's debt problem. Roach is furious when Burnside double-crosses his snout and the papers are returned to the Americans.