Conrad and Simon are in Slough, and head off to assist a youth who has been violently assaulted to force him to relinquish his bike. The report has come in from a good samaritan with whom the victim has sought refuge and so they head there first. It looks like he’s had a pretty nasty blow to the face, and a possible broken nose. He is able to give a description of the bike, along with some money and a mobile. Armed with descriptions, they head off in search of the ‘oiks’, and it doesn’t take too long to find some likely suspects. The lads know they’ve been spotted, so they flee – but not before hastily hiding the bike in a stairwell. One of the suspects, however, is still lurking, and mines the usual depths of bad language and clichéd insults when Simon arrests him. The others might have escaped TV31, but not a local unit called in to assist with the search. Nice.

Lloydy and Jim are in Burnham are out to execute a warrant to arrest a man wanted for armed robbery, which requires kitting up to use the enforcer. Lloydy is the lucky man in pads tonight. The front door gives easily, and people pile in – straight into another door which is much tougher to get through. In the end they resort to smashing the glass panes. – only to find that there’s no one in. There is no such thing as giving up, however, so Charlie and Mish are called in to assist with the arrest of the suspect, who is at a local doctor’s surgery. Not only that – Waller and Flipper are also lurking to help; but the local units get there first. Astonishingly, for bloke with a lot of form for violent robbery, the suspect takes one look at all the coppers and gives up without so much as a squeak.

Everyone is on the lookout for a fast Golf V6 whose occupants have been spending the day razzing around stealing from other motorcars; and have managed, so far, to evade the law. That is, until Mish and Charlie spot them on Langley High Street outside a takeaway. Charlie is just a squeak too late to apprehend them, and the driver screeches off leaving TV32 trying to persuade the large amounts of traffic to get out of their way. A helpful driver, who had to pull over to avoid the speeding vehicle advises that the golf has a tyre out, which will slow it down enormously, so all is not yet lost. They do eventually catch up – with the car abandoned, its front end a disaster area. Canine help in the form of Bella Newsome, with her handler Tristan in tow, arrives and, while they search, Mish and Charlie go through the car to find it full of evidence of preparation for theft. Sadly, all Bella can confirm is that the guy has been picked up by another vehicle and the trail is cold.

Brian is in Reading, but his two dogs – Jake the teeth and Jimmy the nose – are not needed today. An off duty officer has witnessed a man assaulting his girlfriend. Being on duty, Brian makes the arrest, despite the girlfriend’s insistence that the man hasn’t done anything that warrants being nicked. That is, until he attempts to headbutt Brian while handcuffed. His swearing is not that easy to hear, fortunately, as Jake is barking so wildly that he acts as an on-site bleep machine.

Back with Charlie and Mish in Slough, and Mish spots someone running down an alleyway – immediately triggering her suspicions. Well placed, it turns out – as a moped, sporting two riders without helmets and no lights, comes zipping out of it, passing by millimetres from Charlie’s fingertips. Damn.

Still with Charlie and Mish, this time in Reading, where they’re on the lookout for stolen vehicles. Instead their ANPR pings up a car which has been flagged as a conveyance for people doing the dodgy laptop scam. Oddly, the driver is a respectable looking lady, who bought the car from a ‘dealer’ four weeks ago. She’s telling the truth – and is indeed not a laptop scammer. She is, however, uninsured to drive the car as she’s not a named driver on any of the policies held in her household. While Charlie is prepared to have the flag removed from it, it’s still going to be seized. Ironically, the cost of the ticket, and the cost of having the car taken will come to more than what she paid for it in the first place!

Still in Reading with Waller and Flipper, who are heading off, like Knights in shining armour, to assist a couple of young women who are trapped in a car park by a vehicle parked across the entranceway. Annoyingly, the owner of the parked car is ex-directory, so they can’t ring him to get him to come and move it. Instead, Waller prepares to manoeuvre the car out – and finds that the gap looks a lot smaller from inside the car than out on the street. Flipper takes his turn, but – even with Waller calling instructions from the front, it clearly can’t be done without recourse to telekinesis. Instead they have to get a recovery van in to do it for them.