Episode
The Bill: Digging Up the Past
Overview
An excavator on a building site has uncovered some human remains, and Sgt. Cryer calls in C.I.D. Cryer is avoiding returning to the station, as his son Patrick is being charged with causing death by dangerous driving. Ch. Insp. Conway, Burnside and Roach have a word with Cryer, who is avoiding his family. On the building site, D.C. Dashwood and the S.O.C.O. wind up the site manager by saying it may have been a murder, although the bones are very old. A riot ensues as the men want to return to work. Burnside arrives and nicks the whole lot of them. The bones turn out to be from the Great Plague in 1665. P.C. Edwards is angry after being sold forger theatre tickets by Ramsey. Ramsey claims innocence, and the pair manage to locate the forgers. Unable to interest C.I.D. in the case, they investigate on their own and blow a joint Fraud Squad/U.S. Treasury operation to catch counterfeiters printing fake American dollars.
Details
- Series
- The Bill
- Season
- Season 4
- Episode
- Episode 47
- Air date
- 1988-12-27
Episode context
Digging Up the Past is Episode 47 in Series 4 of The Bill. It aired on 1988-12-27.
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Episode 46: Outmoded
Sun Hill police are being called out to a series of bogus shouts which the Yard pins down to a computer hacker breaking into the police computer network. Sgt. Cryer investigates, and finds a former university student who has a acquired an ex-MOD computer which still had access codes to government and police networks on the hard drive. W.P.C. Ackland checks in with a woman who is too scared to leave her flat as she has been repeatedly mugged. Ackland convinces her to go out to get some cigarettes, but when they return, her flat has been trashed. June arranges for her to be moved off the estate. Roach, Dashwood and Carver watch as a car is pulled out of the river with the body of a young woman inside. They question the car owner who had reported it stolen, but he is clearly hiding something. D.S. Roach must inform Sgt. Cryer that it was his son, Patrick, who was driving the car when it went into the river, and that he'd left the scene.
Episode 48: Taken Into Consideration
D.C. Dashwood and D.C. Carver are on an obbo in a street where a spate of burglaries has taken place. They see a young man, Kevin Boswell, climbing over a wall with a bag full of 50p pieces, and they arrest him for theft. They also take Kevin's girlfriend, Daphne, into the station as there is what looks like stolen goods in her house. Dashwood is positive Boswell is their man, and W.P.C. Ackland makes a complaint against him when he applies too much pressure to Boswell during interview. Boswell is either really smart and devious or not too bright and living an elaborate fantasy about being a criminal. Dashwood and Carver return to Boswell's flat and find out which...
More episodes from this season
Episode 45: The Assassins
Burnside and Tosh are in a cafe waiting to catch a group of people who take apart restaurants. They turn out to be upper class twits. One of them winds the magistrate up so much he is sentenced to 28 days in jail and the diplomat father of another waives his immunity. Yorkie and Haynes investigate a removal van. The elderly driver doesn't think the company is to be trusted and he is proven right after visiting the station three times. Tosh's wife turns up looking for housekeeping money from him, and she mentions it is their 15th wedding anniversary.
Episode 44: Guessing Game
Neighbours report an elderly man hasn't been seen for a couple of days, and P.C. Ramsey breaks into the house to find the man dead on the floor. A doctor confirms he died of natural causes. As W.P.C. Ackland checks the house, she is suspiscious of the pictures on the wall and some woman's belongings in a shoe box. It appears the man had a fetish for restraining women against their will, and a CRO check reveals that he had form for such crimes dating back for decades. The belongings found in the house are quite recent, so D.S. Roach suspects that he had captured another victim before he died. Roach, Dashwood and Carver investigate every possibility and finally find another flat owned by him, but no victim. They realise that the neighbour who reported him missing was his intended target, but Roach decides not to tell her about how close she came to danger.
Episode 43: Tigers
An asian lad rings Burnside about a big fight. After checking it out, Carver and Tosh's car get turned over. The lad ends up in a canal. An old girlfriend of Carver's turns up looking for him with a baby which she then leaves behind.
Episode 42: Getting Stressed
Frazer is driving to work when she sees an accident. On informing the man she has rescued she is a police officer he hits her. Ramsey deals with a lady who was raped. An old lady helps Dashwood with info about motorbike muggers. After June brings in a lady drunk in charge of a baby, she goes to help CID as a decoy. After a chase Dashwood lets them get away. Ted is told to stop the relationship he has with Frazer.
Episode 41: An Old-Fashioned Term
P.C. Edwards and W.P.C. Morgan find the naked body of a young woman who appears to have gassed herself to death, but they notice the neighbour who reported the death wiping something from the dead girl's mouth. D.C. Carver can't believe D.C. Lines has been a D.C. for twelve years. Lines isn't convinced the girl's death was a suicide, and impresses Carver with his detective skills when he solves the case - the neighbour, Kelly, has knocked her out with chloroform, raped her, and then turned on the gas. Kelly finally admits it, but Tosh is upset when he won't admit why. D.C. Dashwood is furious when D.S. Roach stands him up on an obbo to have dinner with Insp. Christine Frazer.
Episode 40: The Silent Gun
P.C. Haynes arrives at a house to investigate what seems like a routine disturbance. Instead he finds a bailiff who has been shot in the hand while trying to evict the lodger in the upstairs room. Ch. Supt. Brownlow cancels his weekend away and takes charge of the siege, Ch. Insp. Conway and several armed police from Sun Hill and the TSG move in to try and negotiate the gunman's surrender with no response. A Polish interpreter is brought in when it is realised that the man is Polish, not Irish as reported by the landlady. There is still no response, and a local shopkeeper tells P.C. Smith that the man, Lublin, is also deaf. With no chance of him hearing them approach, armed police and a police dog storm the room and arrest the man. The local residents are getting antsy about being denied access to their homes. P.C. Edwards is sent to turn a woman's oven off, but he breaks into the wrong house.
Episode 39: Old Habits
W.P.C. Brind is called to the house of an elderly lady, Mrs Lomax, who has just been robbed. The old lady is in such a state of shock, she attacks Brind and then suffers a heart attack and dies. It appears there's been a spate of burglaries against several old people from the Salisbury Day Centre, and Brind attends with Insp. Frazer to give a talk on crime prevention. D.C. Dashwood talks to the previous victims and comes up with a possible suspect: Terry Newton, a young lad doing community service at the centre. Terry's probation officer is obstructive to the investigation, and Dashwood is convinced they have their man. Terry admits to Brind that he thinks he knows who it was: Danny Harvey, the junkie newphew of one of the day centre members. D.S. Roach and Dashwood go to Maurice Harvey's flat - he's an old villain from the time of the Krays - and find that Danny has overdosed in the next room, but his uncle doesn't care.
Episode 38: Snout
Episode 37: Duplicates
Due to her slight resemblance to a missing woman, W.P.C. Brind reluctantly agrees to perform a reconstruction of her disappearance for television. D.S. Roach and D.C. Carver go to serve an arrest warrant for video piracy, but instead find the aftermath of a bare-knuckle boxing match and a critically injured fighter. The organiser tries to bribe Roach. Carver and Roach manage to locate their video pirate, but Dashwood shows up late to the raid as he is speaking to camera for the reconstruction. The missing girl's parents thank Brind for her help.
Episode 36: Conflict
Lines and Carver are doing an obbo on a man who might lead them to an arms dump. June and Ramsey arrest him because he beat his girlfriend who didn't want him to go out. The doctor at the hospital is going to make a complaint against Ramsey because of the way he interogates the girlfriend.