Held Responsible

THE BILL
Episode 025: Held Responsible
Thursday 14 January 2009, 21.00 to 22.00, ITV1. Repeated on ITV3 on Monday 18 January at 23:00

D.C. Terry Perkins (Bruce Byron) visits a clinic for rape victims, and is horrified when 16 year old Janine Clark (Fiona Ryan) says she was raped by her boyfriend Mark Watts (Gregory Foreman) and his three friends, Greg Holbrook (Tommy Knight), Paul Hayes (Scott Haran) and Leo Cooper (Joe Cole) a few days ago.

At the station, Janine tells Terry she was invited to Greg’s house, where all four boys were drinking and watching porn. Janine admits to going into a bedroom to have sex with Mark, but afterwards he slapped her and told her to “be nice” to his friends.

While Mark, Paul and Leo raped her, Greg held her down while Paul filmed it on Mark’s phone. The four boys are arrested and when Mark is questioned, the arrogant teenager says the group sex was initiated by Janine.

Elsewhere, Greg is interviewed by DCs Jo Masters (Sally Rogers) and Jacob Banks (Patrick Robinson), with his mother Susan (Naomi Allistone) as his appropriate adult. Greg tells Jo how two weeks before, Janine had started kissing him in front of Mark and Susan takes this as proof that Janine is lying about being raped.

Jo becomes more frustrated as Susan obstructs the interview throughout. After the interviews, D.I. Neil Manson (Andrew Lancel) heads up a briefing and clashes with Jo who insists that whatever Janine may have done in the past, it doesn’t mean that she consented on the night of the incident.

Neil, Banksy and Terry are sympathetic but know that it weakens the case against the boys, but Jo refuses to give up...

Back at Janine’s house, she admits to Terry that she did kiss Greg, but only to make Mark jealous and never consented to group sex. Janine’s mother Carol (Chloe Howman), clearly struggling with the situation, angrily berates her for bringing trouble on herself.

As the investigation continues, Neil makes it clear to his team that without the mobile phone footage, they don’t have a case. Later that day, Janine tells Terry she wants to drop the charges as she’s been receiving threatening phone calls and Terry begs her to reconsider.

Jo, horrified that the boys might get away with the rape, begs for more time on the case. With egotistical Mark, confident that he’ll be out of Sun Hill soon, Jo is determined to get a confession out of Greg, the weakest member of the group. With only two hours left until they can be released, can Jo uncover the truth..?

THE BILL is a talkbackTHAMES production and a direct commission by ITV. This episode was written by David Young, directed by Karl Neilson and produced by Ciara McIlvenny.