The Bill

Hostage (2x5)

Air date: Dec 09, 1985

Sgt. Cryer is taking half the relief out on Sun Hill's annual fishing trip. PC Smith and DC Dashwood go to serve a warrant on Russell Archer over a non-appearance in court on a poaching charge. Archer manages to escape from Dashwood and Smith, and is later seen menacing a milkman with a sawn-off shotgun. He later holds up a bookies and a greengrocer, until he is spotted by PC Carver and PC Frank. who give chase. Frank is shot and wounded during the chase, and Archer ends up taking an elderly woman hostage in a retirement village. With the fishing trip cancelled, DS Roach takes charge of the siege operation until DI Galloway and Ch. Supt. Brownlow arrive. Attempts to contact the increasingly unstable Archer fail, until he asks to speak to Sgt. Cryer whom he saw in the betting shop. Cryer enters the flat, and attempts to talk Archer into giving himself up. With WPC Ackland posing as a Meals-on-Wheels driver, Galloway, Roach and PT17 officers storm the flat and shoot Archer.