The WORST episodes of The Bill
Every episode of The Bill ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of The Bill!
The Bill follows the officers of Sun Hill, a Metropolitan Police station located in the fictional Borough of Canley in London's East End. Created in 1983 by Geoff McQueen as a one-off drama called "Woodentop", The Bill was spun off as a full series, and ran for over 26 years and 2,425 episodes. Covering both uniformed officers and CID detectives, the series is renowned for its accurate and authentic portrayal of policing in London.
#1 - A Week of Nights (1)
Season 17 - Episode 33 - Aired 5/4/2001
New Area Car driver, PC Des Taviner, makes an instant (but negative) impression on the relief when he starts work on the night shift at Sun Hill, with his overbearing manner and sharp mouth. He clashes with PC Worrell, and demands she be taken off Area Car duty with him, as he says she is "clueless". Paired with PC Hollis, Taviner chats up two girls waiting for the night bus and offers them a lift home. DC Glaze makes a breakthrough in a series of brutal rapes on the Jasmine Allen estate, and when residents report a woman screaming on Canley Fields, all Sierra Oscar units race to the scene. Taviner is sympathetic towards the victim, prostitute Lynn Roberts, and vows to "get the bastard" responsible.
#2 - Tolerance (2)
Season 17 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/30/2001
When the victim in yesterday's domestic disturbance turns up badly beaten and left for dead, her husband is adamant he had nothing to do with it. Mandy tells Cryer that the woman who was bashed, Cath Evans, was working as a prostitute, and that the Councillor's husband Justin was one of her clients. But Justin in turn, having admitted his deeds to his wife, says that he was seeing Mandy as well, and that on the night of the fire, she turned up late and had blood on her clothes. Meanwhile, Smith arrives at SO19 to find his new friend Julie also made the grade, but on their training course, treats her as the token female. When she beats him on the rifle range it causes friction, and their boss cautions that they have to learn to work as a team. Under pressure, Mandy finally admits to Sgt. Cryer that Justin Harris is a client, and that he was paying her extra to keep it quiet. But that meant her paying off Cath and Sally, so when Cath threatened to tell Fleet, she bashed her up.
#3 - Promised Land
Season 17 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/3/2001
PC Nick Klein becomes involved when Kosovan refugees housed at a council estate are being harassed and attacked. Later, at a family gathering, Nick's cousin Jerry arrives and is praised by the family for his success. DC Webb investigates a robbery at a clothing factory, and his investigations lead him to Norman Klein, Nick's uncle. The link between the latest robbery and a previous one is revealed to be Jerry Klein who assessed security at both places. When Jerry is found badly beaten, Nick decides he must tell the police about his cousin's possible involvement, which results in DI Cullen catching the gang on their third job.
#4 - Tour of Duty
Season 17 - Episode 26 - Aired 4/10/2001
Visiting Bob Cryer in hospital, June Ackland is horrified to find that Cryer doesn't know he has already been replaced at Sun Hill. His replacement is Sgt. Craig Gilmore, transferring from Manchester Police. Gilmore wastes no time in telling the relief that the rumours are true: he is gay. DC Lennox investigates the harassment of a local publican by a gang of youths, but when Gilmore organises a 'beat sweep' of the local estates, they find the publican's daughter is involved with the gang. Her information leads them to an illegal drinking club. After the police raid the club and arrest the gang members, one of them accuses PC Harker of brutality.
#5 - Lies of Silence
Season 17 - Episode 27 - Aired 4/13/2001
On temporary assignment to the Serious Crime Group, DC Lennox is surprised to find Liz Rawton is Acting DI at SCG. The body of a young girl, later identified as Hayley Mills, is found in a concrete slab in a cement works. Rawton and Lennox question the new owner of the cement works, Digby Leake, and Rawton tells Lennox off for his aggressive approach to the case. Hayley's ex-boyfriend tells them of a modelling agency which doubled as an escort service where Hayley worked and that Hayley was pregnant, and the owner Leon Walsh is certainly suspiscious, especially when the police find a car of his containing Hayley's blood. Forensics reveals that Hayley died of an ectopic pregnancy, and was not murdered, Leake admits that he was the father and that his assistant Harry Rawlings dumped the body when Hayley died from the complications. Lennox forms a bond with Hayley's friend Karen, who confides to him that Rawlings and Leon are involved in smuggling heroin from Hong Kong.
#6 - Over the Hill
Season 17 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/17/2001
It's Sgt. Matt Boyden's 40th birthday, and to make matters worse, he has to cancel a date to attend an outward-pursuit weekend with PC Vicky Hagen and a group of wayward teenagers. CID investigate the serious bashing of an elderly man, and their prime suspect is Jason Wyatt who had attacked the same man some months previously. Jason is one of the group with Boyden and Hagen, and his aggressive personality causes several arguments and fights over the weekend. Boyden forms a bond with the boy though, and suspects Jason's abusive father had more to do with the attack. Forensics prove him right, but to Boyden's dismay, Jason faces a manslaughter charge as the injuries he inflicted on the man months ago caused the man to die. Hagen promises Boyden a birthday drink, but the relief have organised a surprise party, so they take a raincheck.
#7 - Head Over Heels
Season 17 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/20/2001
Tony Stamp joins a dating agency for professional people, telling them he is an antiques dealer, and as he is living in the section house, gives them Polly Page's address. A CID operation involving forged banknotes goes wrong, and Sgt. Gilmore tells Stamp and Hayward off when they pursue and arrest an armed suspect without backup. When DC Webb and DC Spears investigate a series of robberies, they discover a link to Tony's dating agency, and that Tony's date Lisa invites men to stay at her flat and then arranges for their house to be burgled. CID set up surveillance outside Page's house, and catch the thieves, and Stamp must sadly arrest Lisa.
#8 - Hitting Home
Season 17 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/24/2001
The relief have organised a farewell party for Bob Cryer, but it sounds like he's not too keen to go, so Ch. Insp. Conway pays him a visit. The police inquiry clears PC Smith of charges relating to Cryer's shooting, although his probation period is extended. PC Worrell and PC Clarke attend a reported break-in at the house of a hippy couple, who claim a valuable necklace was stolen, and the intruder turns out to be a plumber who still has the key. PC Klein and PC Hayward are called when a strange young woman accuses her neighbour of torturing her elderly mother. When the old woman disappears, it appears she was taken by her son who is wanted for parole violation in Manchester. Cryer turns up for his leaving do at the Bell & Badger, and is in high spirits, though he is angered by Supt. Chandler's speech. Cryer also announces he has brought along a special guest: Dale Smith - he insists he has no hard feelings against Smithy, and that the others should forgive him as well.
#9 - Value Judgement
Season 17 - Episode 31 - Aired 4/27/2001
A man matching the description of a local paedophile is seen lurking outside a local school, but when the police visit him, he denies it. Outside the school, PC Reg Hollis sees three men fighting, and one of them bundles a struggling young boy into a car, one of the men in the fight runs but is arrested, and he denies knowing the boy. PC Vicky Hagen pursues in the Area Car, but dents the side when she swerves to avoid a head-on collision. The police investigate the case as an abduction, but the boy's aunt reports that he is safe and well and living with his mother - or as safe as he can be, since his mother is living with local scumbag Shane Weller. The boy Jack's mother tells Sgt. Boyden that the man they have in custody is Murad Gocek, Jack's Turkish father, and that he wants to take the boy back to Turkey with him. When Jack goes missing for real, his aunt tells Boyden that his father is staying in a hostel, and that Weller is on his way there. As the police arrest Weller's thugs, Weller drives his car towards a fleeing Gocek and his son. PC Hagen drives between them, totalling the Area Car which, in addition to her two recent PolAccs, results in the instant loss of her police driver's licence.
#10 - Collateral Damage
Season 17 - Episode 32 - Aired 5/1/2001
DS McAllister is surprised to run into her former lover and informant Jamie Ross in a bar, when he returns to Sun Hill after the man who wanted him dead dies of a heart attack. Ross is in a new line of work: organising adventure holidays - but he still has plenty of inside knowledge, and when he and McAllister resume their relationship, he reveals the man responsible for a hit-and-run on a drug dealer and a schoolgirl. To McAllister's horror, she realises that Ross has used her, as he is deeply in debt to Brett Sadler who ordered the drug dealer killed. DI Cullen convinces Ross to help them catch Sadler, but Ross is shot and killed by a sniper.
#11 - Tolerance (1)
Season 17 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/27/2001
Sgt. Bob Cryer is approaching his 30th year of service, but some of the senior officers at the station doubt he is still up to the job. Supt. Chandler assigns Cryer the difficult task of resolving a situation where a group of prostitutes are at loggerheads with a local residents group led by Counciller Angela Morris. Cryer suggests a 'zone of tolerance', a non-residential area where the prostitutes can work without upsetting the locals, and manages to convince the girls to give it a try. As Chandler heads off to a charity dinner, a call comes through that the Morris' house has been torched. Meanwhile, PC Smith attends his interview for transfer to SO19 - he is successful, and leaves Sun Hill to join the Armed Response Unit.
#12 - A Week of Nights (2)
Season 17 - Episode 34 - Aired 5/8/2001
DS McAllister and DC Glaze are certain they've got their man for the Jasmine Allen rapes - Lenworth Lomanu, a convicted rapist who was seen by Klein and Stamp in the vicinity at the same time as Lynn Roberts was attacked. PC Des Taviner is not so sure, and he suspects that the young man he and PC Worrell questioned outside a pharmacy before it was robbed is responsible. As Taviner and Hollis do their own investigation, Lomanu's arrest causes a near riot on the Jasmine Allen, and Sgt. Gilmore is attacked when he returns two housewives to the estate. Taviner gets his man, Conrad James, but his solicitor brother gets him off the hook. Clear evidence that Conrad is dealing drugs on the estate gives the police the opportunity to raid and search his house, and Conrad admits to the rapes as well.
#13 - Wednesday
Season 17 - Episode 35 - Aired 5/11/2001
PC Klein and PC Taviner arrest two men fighting in the street. DC Danny Glaze is surprised to see one of the men is his old school friend Lol Redman. He is even more surprised when Redman is charged with racial assault after the other man, Devon Russell, says Redman called him a 'black bastard'. Redman is bailed, Glaze gives him lift and arranges to meet him in the pub later. As Glaze waits, Redman is arrested again outside Russell's house. DS McAllister visits Russell's wife whilst he makes a statement at the station, and she admits that she and Redman had an affair and that her husband is a violent and paranoid man, and that Redman was just concerned with her well-being. Back at the station, Russell claims to have a tape of Redman's verbal abuse, but the tape is inconclusive and Redman is released again, although he admits to Danny he did say those things in the heat of the moment. As Glaze gives him a lift home, Redman is set upon by three men, led by Devon Russell's brother, and beaten to death.
#14 - Billy the Kid
Season 17 - Episode 36 - Aired 5/15/2001
A ten-year-old boy who calls himself 'Billy the Kid' is arrested twice in one day, and when Sgt. Boyden speaks to him, he reveals he wanted to speak to the police without being a grass, and that he is concerned about his sister, Kate, an underage prostitute who is being used by her stepfather in a blackmail scam. DI Jane Edmonds from SCG arrives to investigate the scam. She flirts with Boyden - the two clearly have a previous history together - which stirs up the jealousy of Vicky Hagen. When Billy is hit by a car, he is abducted from St Hughs hospital by Kate and their stepfather Tom Adams, who is behind the blackmail and whom Kate is besotted with. Edmonds is all for arresting Adams when they use one of the previous victims in a sting operation, but Boyden risks letting him go so he will lead them to the missing kids.
#15 - Still Crazy
Season 17 - Episode 37 - Aired 5/18/2001
PC Dave Quinnan returns to duty, and is determined to prove to everyone that he's back to normal after his breakdown. Out in a panda car, Quinnan sees a man shot in the head in a van - he calls for assistance, but by the time reinforcements arrive, the victim, the van and the main witness have disappeared. Desperate to prove his sanity, Quinnan pursues the case vigourously, and enlists the help of DC Paul Riley's brother Joe, who asks the wrong people the wrong questions. PC Polly Page is outraged by a practical joke played by PC Taviner, but she and Quinnan get their revenge in a most amusing way.
#16 - Complicity (1)
Season 17 - Episode 38 - Aired 5/25/2001
DS Vik Singh goes undercover to a 'car cruise', where he becomes involved with a well-organised car ringing gang led by Kevin North. Meanwhile, DC Mickey Webb tries to cultivate an unofficial 15-year old snout named Tyro Shaw, in the hope that he will grass up his father, Steve Shaw. Singh poses as a car thief, and is soon in with the gang, even gaining a meeting with North's boss - Jennifer Salter. As Webb gets frustrated by Shaw's dead-end leads, Singh pushes the boy too far about his involvement with the gang.
#17 - Complicity (2)
Season 17 - Episode 39 - Aired 6/1/2001
Tyro Shaw threatens to blow DS Singh's cover in the car-ringing gang, but is convinced otherwise. Singh seems to have impressed both Kevin North and his boss, Jennifer Salter, who seems quite taken with him. Salter tells Singh the gang is moving on soon, and he realises he must get the evidence in North's office. As Singh enters the office, Webb realises that Tyro Shaw has set them up, and Vik is abducted by North and Salter. Webb convinces Tyro to tell them where Vik was taken, and CID narrowly rescue him from being set alight.
#18 - Suffer the Little Children
Season 17 - Episode 40 - Aired 6/8/2001
DI Cullen leads a drugs raid on a warehouse owned by his old nemesis, Terry Barlow, but finds nothing. Cullen is furious with DC Glaze, whose snout tipped them off about drugs on the premises. PC Harker and PC Rickman deal with a domestic case involving an argumentative couple, the Carters, and their baby. Neither case makes any progress until a neighbour reports that Barlow has been to visit the Carters on several occasions. Determined to get one up on CID, Harker puts the pieces together and comes up with a theory that the Carters are putting their baby up for sale on the Guatemalan black market with the help of a doctor at St Hugh's, and Barlow is the broker. Despite warnings from Glaze, Harker presses on and is proven correct when they raid a hotel where the exchange has taken place. Baby Sean is recovered, and the police race to an office building where Jackie Carter is threatening to kill herself.
#19 - Happy and Glorious (1)
Season 17 - Episode 41 - Aired 6/15/2001
The Section House is closing, and Hollis is not only looking for a new place to live, but he is also applying for a transfer to SO14, the Royal Protection unit. He is about to buy a flat owned by an elderly friend, Doreen Tyler, but she changes her mind at the last minute, so he moves in with Stamp temporarily. Hollis's intuition gives CID an important lead on a planned armed robbery, but his uniformed colleagues conspire against him to have Klein organise the Section House closing party instead of him. Upset that his colleagues no longer value his credibility, Hollis decides to skip the party and goes round to visit Doreen, only to find her lying on her living room floor with head injuries.
#20 - Home and Away
Season 17 - Episode 13 - Aired 2/16/2001
Supt. Chandler is outraged when he finds out about the aggravated burglary of a deaf and blind woman in the local paper rather than from CID. Reg Hollis overhears Matt Boyden gossiping to Vicky Hagen about Dave and Polly, and soon the news of their affair is all over the station. Accompanied by a reporter from the newspaper, CID and Uniform raid the house of suspected burgler Mick Corcoran, but when Corcoran attacks Polly Page, he is brutally beaten by Quinnan and requires hospital treatment. Sgt. Boyden arranges tickets for a charity ball, but the limo breaks down and they all take refuge in a country pub, where Jenny Quinnan finally works out that Dave is having an affair.
#21 - No Victim
Season 17 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/16/2001
PC Worrell and PC Quinnan attend to a woman threatening to jump off a bridge. She turns out to be Sarah Collins, the wife of Terry Collins, a DS at Stafford Row CID. Despite the doubts of some of her colleagues, PC Worrell is determined to pursue the matter as a domestic violence case. She convinces Sarah to make a statement and testify in court by telling Sarah of her own experience with domestic violence. The case is dismissed, however - Sarah becomes reluctant to testify, and there are doubts about her character. When Worrell goes to check on her at the Collins house, she finds that Sarah has murdered her husband. Meanwhile, Dave Quinnan struggles to find the right time to tell his wife about his affair with Polly Page.
#22 - Common Language
Season 17 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/19/2001
A young Russian girl leads Dale Smith out of a nightclub, where he is promptly attacked by three men. Despite Smith's protests, Supt. Chandler assigns DI Cullen to investigate the assault. They track down the Russian woman, Natasha Ivanova, through a language school which seems to be recruiting students to work as prostitutes. Natasha is desperate as her visa is about to expire, and her sister has disappeared. Her sister is found murdered, and Smith realises the men responsible for her death and his assault are linked to a man from his old army unit (episode: Blurred Around the Edges).
#23 - PC Smith
Season 17 - Episode 6 - Aired 1/23/2001
Hoping it will convince Supt. Chandler to endorse his transfer to SO19, PC Smith volunteers with PC Klein to 'babysit' Clive Allein, the victim of a gay bashing who is reluctantly testifying against his assailant, Gary Cook, in court the next day. Smith nearly blows it when his angry reaction to Clive's partner Ian Jones's teasing causes Jones to run off, where he is promptly attacked. Allein refuses to testify, until Smith convinces him otherwise. The trial goes ahead, and the attacker is found guilty, but further threats from Cook's friend Paul Taylor cause Ian to storm off again, this time he goes missing. Smith and Klein fear the worst when a stabbing victim is reported, but it turns out to be Paul Taylor who is the vicitm, and Ian Jones the attacker.
#24 - Family Honour
Season 17 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/26/2001
Supt. Chandler is speaking at a meeting on the Larkmead Estate, but vandalism and a petrol bomb cut short his talk. Sgt. Ackland is called to the house of local MP Stephen Hadley and his wife Fiona, where their infant child has died of serious injuries. Forensic examination reveals the baby was thrown to the floor, and Fiona Hadley says her husband was responsible. Hadley is arrested, but denies her claim. A lack of evidence sees him released, but he is arrested again for beating his wife when he returns home. It turns out the Hadleys' other child knocked the baby's high chair over.
#25 - Words of Wisdom
Season 17 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/30/2001
After an ear-bending from Marsha Harris, Supt. Chandler is determined to bring to an end the one-boy crime wave on the Larkmead Estate caused by resident hooligan Peter Rogers. Chandler persuades Sgt. Ackland to talk to Peter's mother, and also tries to get Marsha Harris's daughter Cassie to make a statement to the police against Rogers, but both are too scared of the boy to comply. When Cassie Harris is found half-drowned in a river, and PCs Stamp and Hollis turn up a CCTV tape of Rogers smashing up cars, it seems they may be able to put him away at last - although it turns out that Cassie's drowning was self-inflicted and the CCTV tape is actually Peter's brother Gavin trying to frame him for criminal damage.