Spoiler
BENT COPPERS
Line of Duty’s latest shock twist has left viewers stunned — but who could have been behind it?
LINE of Duty fans were left stunned at the latest episode when the thriller’s hero Supt Ted Hastings was arrested under suspicion of being the one thing he despises - a bent copper.
The leader of anti-corruption unit pleaded his innocence before insisting he was being framed as the dreaded H, the police chief working with gangsters from inside the force.
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Ted has been acting suspiciously in series five of Jed Mercurio’s cop drama, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest he might not be all he seems.
But devotees of the BBC1 show will also struggle to accept that the AC-12 icon could do anything other than do his duty - and to the letter.
We look at the the chances of him being a good cop or a bad cop, and who could have set him up if he really is innocent with a Jed Herring rating out of five. The higher the score, the less likely it is they framed Ted.
DCS Patricia Carmichael
SHE is the top cop brought in from the outside to investigate Ted – and there is clearly a long-running resentment between the two Detective Chief Superintendents.
Suspiciously, she does not say she wants to get to the truth, but she explicitly states she is going to prove that Ted is H. And she may be willing to go to any lengths to do so.
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DCS Carmichael, played by Anna Maxwell Martin may be in the prime position to set Ted up.
But she seems too much of an obvious choice.
There is too much evidence pointing towards her being out to get him for her to be the one.
- Jed Herring rating: 4/5
DS Sam Railston
SHE was the partner of DCS Hargreaves, who was exposed as being bent in episode three.
Perhaps they were in league.
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And being the on/off lover of DS Steve Arnott means Sam, played by Aiysha Hart, could have harvested sensitive details through pillow talk.
Jed has not done much to suggest she could be a suspect, but she’s perfectly placed to pull the strings of all the characters.
And who would suspect the polite young woman of being the cunning H?
- Jed Herring rating: 1/5
DI Kate Fleming
A WILD card option, but Kate has been suspiciously obstructive to DS Arnott, and she looked very nervous when Ted started to interfere and infiltrate the gang last night.
She could have been worried that he would ruin the investigation or even bust open the criminal gang she may be in league with.
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Perhaps Kate, played by Vicky McClure, is being blackmailed into co-operating by threats to the family she has just been reunited with.
There’s been little or nothing to suggest Kate could be capable of framing Ted – but in the twisted world of Line Of Duty, that counts for little at this stage.
- Jed Herring rating: 5/5
Lawyer Gill Biggeloe
WHETHER the police lawyer played by Polly Walker is bent or not, she has reason to resent Ted.
First he shunned her advances and then he humiliatingly told of his regret at sleeping with her because their night of passion coincided with Mrs Hastings getting attacked.
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If she really is in league with the criminals – or even H – she’d be desperate to get Ted out of the way. Framing him would be the perfect way to get him out of the picture.
We’ve already seen her try in vain to get him to retire.
But maybe she does just love the man and was simply offering him advice from the heart.
- Jed Herring rating: 2/5
PCC Rohan Sindwhani
POLICE and Crime Commissioner Sindwhani has had a growing presence in this series – though in a classic bit of Jed mind play, he has kept a low enough profile not to arouse too much suspicion.
But in this week’s episode he was instrumental in taking AC-12 off the Operation Pear Tree investigation, which would be the perfect way to ensure they don’t get to the truth.
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And if Gill Biggeloe is in league with the criminals, or out to get Ted, she would make the ultimate partner if Sindwhani, played by Ace Bhatti, was determined to do the same.
But he still doesn’t seem to have a solid reason to do this – at least not yet.
- Jed Herring rating: 3/5
Bad cop?
TED was arrested after visiting gangster Lee Banks in prison, suspiciously just before the murder of undercover cop John Corbett.
Ted has also been too quick to claim that H was Assistant Chief Constable Derek Hilton. It’s the perfect way to distract attention from himself.
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When gang members communicated with H on a laptop messaging service, we saw Ted had been using the same service on his device. Then he seemed to take it to be destroyed or have the memory wiped.
Suspicions were roused last week, when he misspelt the word “definitely” as “definately”, just as H had done.
His desperation to get hands-on with infiltrating the gang also seemed dodgy. Could he have been trying to compromise the operation?
Good cop?
IF Ted was working with gangsters for money, then he would surely not be in the financial difficulty he is.
And the criminals do not appear to have anything to blackmail him with.
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Ted did receive a suspicious £50,000 from cop-turned-investment manager Mark Moffatt – but he claimed he did not know what was going to be in the envelope and he probably assumed it was just compensation for the cash he lost in the property scheme.
As for the laptop Ted may be destroying, it could be for any number of reasons.
And his more reckless behaviour, including the solo prison visit to gangster Lee Banks and barging into the surveillance operation on the gang, may just be him resorting to desperate measures to catch the criminals.
And four other mysteries...
THERE are several other Line Of Duty questions we still need answering . . .
- What’s the Northern Ireland connection between Supt Ted Hastings and DI John Corbett?
- Is former cop Mark Moffatt really working for a property company or is he a middle man for gangsters?
- Who is Lisa McQueen? Is she an undercover cop or criminal?
- What was the relevance of the failed attempt by DS Steve Arnott and DS Sam Railston to get it on in the bedroom?
Former undercover cop Peter Bleksley says Line Of Duty's H might be a place not a person
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