Episode 16
Not the Producers...they don't do that anymore...
Chris and Luggy are parked on a bridge over the M5 near Tiverton. Jim has let them know that a vehicle on a marker for Class A drugs is heading their way, so Luggy's out on the bridge looking for it, while Giles is – again – parked on the on-slip waiting for it to come by. Luggy isn't entirely sure he's seen it, but he has – and Roger and Giles are soon behind it and pull it. The three occupants turn out to be four, so all four officers arrive and make their introductions. Chris's suspect doesn't take at all kindly to the camera, and has to be pulled from the car to be cuffed. The chap is claimed to have epilepsy, though being arrested isn't likely to trigger a fit. All it's done has made Chris suspicious that it was a distraction tactic. Elsewhere, the questioning has begun, and a full search will be undertaken once Jim has arrived to help carry the suspects back to the nick. Once there, the searching begins – the Lads inside with the suspects, Jim outside with the car. His first find is a McDonald's bag absolutely full of sugar portions – apparently they're not aware that there's a limit to the word 'free'. The boot, however, is more forthcoming, and he finds a carrier bag with what looks like leaf litter in it – but the familiar pungency of cannabis is rising from it, as well as from another bag. All that's left to do is find out who is going to cough for it. Finally, a passenger does the honours, and follows Chris out to be cautioned – apparently he bought it in Bristol because it's cheaper there; must be something to do with the RCU disrupting the supply chains then. The driver, interestingly, doesn't know anything about it. Given that he's borrowed the car and is uninsured, it doesn't matter what he knows anymore as the car's being seized.
Saturday night in Exeter at closing time. A security guard has spotted a couple of trespassers in a park which just happens to be behind a nightclub which has a spot of notoriety for matters of a drug-type nature. Fortunately, Gareth is passing, and takes over. One of them starts making Human Rights noises at the sight of the camera, but Gareth proceeds regardless with finding out who is who and why they're there. One of them seems to be finding it hard to understand what's going on, even though he has climbed over a fence to get into the park. By the sound of his words, he is probably a bit bevvied up, and a quick search reveals nothing. The other, however, would very much rather Gareth kept out of his pockets – which is not surprising given that he's got a bag of drugs in them. Despite this, he insists he isn't doing anything wrong – but the law says otherwise, so it's off to the nick, where a strip search reveals a load of amphetamine hidden in areas other than his pockets. As for his colleague – he's not doing anything other than the trespassing, so he's allowed to go on his way.
Steve is on his way to Crediton where some teenagers have been spotted messing around with cars in a car park. He has to go for it some, as he's about five miles away – but some local officers have managed to find some likely suspects, one of whom has been found to have a screwdriver, so they're being held in a local kebab shop while everything is sorted out. It turns out that they haven't been planning on stealing cars – but they have been nicking car badges. They're all minors, and they have one hell of a haul of badges in their pockets and backpacks. When questioned on what they'd planned to do with the collection, none of them seem to have considered that any more than the overall cost of the damage they've done. The total amount of stolen badges comes to just under sixty, along with a collection of screwdrivers, a rather vicious looking catapult and several cans of cider. It's now that the boys discover that, should their activities reach court, then they'll have a criminal record, something which clearly hadn't occurred to them while they were collecting. Not to mention a hoarde of hungry kebab-fans who are eager for proceedings to be brought to a close so they can go and eat.
Roger and Giles are parked up alongside the M5 doing a spot of ANPRing. It dings at them to indicate that a passing van has neither a keeper nor insurance, so they head after it. Roger attempts to pull it, but lights, gestures and sirens make no difference, so they follow him to an industrial estate where they finally catch up with him. It seems that the gentleman in the car is quite used to being stopped for this reason, which doesn't impress Giles in the slightest as it's not his problem that they guy keeps showing up with no insurance. The driver claims to be insured on a Trade Policy – but the policy holder's phone is off so he can't get any evidence of this. It then turns out that the vehicle is insured on his own policy – which Giles is happy to accept – but he can't prove that either. It turns out that he isn't aware of the Serious Organised Crime And Police Act 2005, and demands a producer. The driver's employment status also seems to change with each statement he makes, confusing matters even further. Enough is enough, so Giles – fed up with copious amounts of Insurance Company Muzak – seizes the vehicle.
Darryl is on his way to a nasty traffic accident just outside Exeter, where a car has crashed off the road with five youths in it. Given the occupants, for once it's a genuine accident caused by circumstance rather than foolishness. The word is that the driver swerved to avoid something in the road and lost control. On the scene, paramedics are present and looking after the occupants. The driver, both incredibly unfortunate and incredibly lucky at the same time, passed his test barely two days prior, and is being treated in the privacy of the ambulance for miraculously minor injuries. The passengers, none of whom are seriously injured either, are all living proof of the magic of seatbelts – as they were all wearing them at the time. Things are largely congenial until the driver's understandably frantic father arrives. Mistakenly thinking that they're filming his son, he heads straight for the cameraman and has to be pulled off. Once he's calmed down, he joins his son in the ambulance and Darryl gets to work searching for the car. When he finds it, he can hardly believe how they've all got out as the car has spun off the road, gone through a hedge, rolled and landed on its roof in a ditch. It's so damaged, in fact, that it takes several minutes to identify what make it was. It's robustness, however, has helped to save five lives.

