Episode 16
The One With the £80 Penny
Kev and Waller are now out and about near Windsor and get behind someone whose driving is rather erratic. Being the time of night that it is, it’s likely that she’s had a few too many – but she takes an astonishingly long time to stop as she seems intent on getting her car into her drive, and they end up stopping her mere metres from her house. She takes a few attempts at the breathalyser before finally getting the idea and providing a positive sample, and is arrested. She is insistent on getting her car into her drive, but they won’t allow her to do it as she’s now officially unfit, so Kev kindly does the honours. Once back at the nick, however, she’s discovered to be double the limit and will have to spend the rest of the night in a cell.
Simon and Conrad are on patrol in Slough and spot a guy driving while on his mobile. Being otherwise occupied, he is not paying much attention to the road and cuts someone up on a roundabout, and is still on the phone as Simon pulls him. The driver is quite convinced that he hasn’t done anything dangerous while on the phone, but the guy he cut up doesn’t concur, having used his horn to demonstrate his discontent. Interesting, the guy is claiming that his father will – literally – kill him if he gets a ticket, a suggestion that cuts absolutely no ice with Simon at all, who issues a producer to sort out the ticket and points at his local nick.
Dan and Daz are out in Reading patrolling an area well known as a hot spot to buy drugs, and get behind a car which has been in and out of the area so briefly that there couldn’t be anything else that the driver was doing there. The driver plays dumb at first, until it becomes clear that Dan knows exactly what he’s been up to and he sheepishly extracts a bag of puff from his pocket. In hopes of providing a street caution, Dan searches the car to ensure that there’s nothing lurking to scupper it, while Daz engages in a spot of discussion over why they’ve stopped the guy in the car and not gone in to take out the dealers themselves at which point Daz reminds him that, if he and fellow users didn’t go and buy the stuff, there wouldn’t be any dealers. The search turns up nothing, so they can go ahead with the street caution and let the guy on his way – one bag of cannabis lighter…
Now in Slough, Dan and Daz spot a young lad buzzing around on the road aboard a titchy mini moto with no helmet, no license, no tax, no MOT, no proper lights on the bike and no insurance. Amazingly he doesn’t flee like a demented gnat, but instead gets off and takes the rap. He is not, however, impressed at the discovery that they’re seizing the tiddly bike; but, rather than arrest him, the boys decide instead to take him home to his parents and put the matter in their hands instead. Despite attempts to prevent them from doing so – claiming the parents are out, then giving a duff telephone number, they make contact and arrange to take him home for a parental rollocking. The next step is recovering the bike – which requires a recovery lorry as they can’t put it on the back seat.
Still with Dan and Daz, we’re now on the M4 watching a lorry driver execute an appalling attempt to return to the motorway having wrongly exited at junction 5 right in front of them, rather than simply going down to the roundabout and rejoining on the other side of it. The driver is Hungarian, but Dan’s telling-off rises above the language barrier with the help of a little bit of mime – which is probably not what was on the DVD whose cover they find at the side of the road when the lorry drives off…
Rejoining Kev and Waller in Slough, the viewing public is entertained by the delightful vision of a drunk chap having a whizz against a shop wall. He flees when challenged, but is quickly retrieved by Kev. Rather than simply accept the fine and get on his way, he allows the booze to loosen his tongue somewhat which slows everything down and puts him at risk of being nicked, particularly as he seems to be giving false details, before he starts squaring up to Waller, to whom he appears to have taken a solid dislike. Finally, Kev manages to serve him with his ticket, but he’s not particularly interested in finding out how to pay it, and then very nearly scuppers everything by sending one final insult at Waller through the car window!

