Episode:The Short Straw

Transcript

The Short Straw

Episode No.		Series
537	1993x036	9

Original Airdate

26th March 1993

Written By

Russell Lewis

Produced By

Richard Handford

Directed By

William Brayne

Episode Chronology:

The Short Straw is the 537th episode of The Bill.

Plot[]

When her car breaks down on the way to the station, DC Viv Martella misses an important CID briefing about an obbo on a suspected armed robbery, and is furious when she is taken off the case by DI Frank Burnside. As CID and SO19 wait outside the target, Martella and PC Tony Stamp follow up a simple case to arrest a suspected bag snatcher. As they wait outside the suspect's house, a van pulls up, obscuring their view. Having missed the briefing, Martella fails to recognise the van's occupants as the armed robbers, and when she approaches their van she is shot and killed. Stamp is wounded, but manages to give a description of the van which is spotted by PC Polly Page who is on foot patrol and followed from a distant by a traffic police motorcycle. The Van enters a car park and the robbers got into an Blue Vauxhall Senator. They soon realise that they was follow and ram the police motorcycle officer off he bike. As the India 99 police helicopter and SO19 cars pursue Martella's killers across London, PC Loxton and WPC Ackland disobey Ch. Insp. Cato's orders and pursue the suspect vehicle in the Area Car. The vehicle swerves to avoid a bulldozer, crashes into the back of another car before rolling over and exploding.