Sun Hill fire (2002)

The Sun Hill Fire was a storyline in the long-running police procedural television series, The Bill, which was broadcast from 1984 to 2010.

During the latter part of 2002, the fictional London borough of Canley is troubled by racial tensions between racist groups and Asian youths over a planned racist demonstration. In March that year, Chief Inspector Derek Conway, was removed from the cast after his character was killed in a petrol bombing, carried out by a racist group.

Derek Conway's former colleague, Inspector Andrew Monroe organised a memorial fund for his family and encouraged each character to donate money. On the day of the collection, Constable Des Taviner confiscated a large sum of money from a youth and kept it, donating the money with the story that he has won a gambling bet.

On the same night of the donations, the streets of Sun Hill descended into rioting and a large group of youths mounted an attack on Sun Hill police station, throwing petrol bombs and trying to gain access to the building. While the attack was in progress, a youth climbed over the way which surrounded the yard area. The youth come face-to-face with Des Taviner and in the resulting scuffle, Taviner seized the youth's petrol bombs, but let him get away. Since having confiscated the money, Des had discovered that it was counterfeit, prompting him to throw the petrol bomb into Inspector Monroe's temporary office where the money was being stored overnight. Unknown to Des, contractors in the process of refurbishing the dtation had left gas canisters in the office. Eventually, the canisters ignited and sent an explostion hurtling through the station, killing six officers who were having a party in an office on the first floor. The contractors had locked the fire exits after their equipment had been stolen, preventing those inside escaping.

The episode attracted over eight million viewers, and was the first of the few times computer generated imagery had been used on the show. The imagery was used because producing a real explosion and fireball ripping through the station corridors was not possible.

Six regular cast members were removed as a result of the fire:


 * Uniformed Inspector Andrew Monroe
 * Uniformed Constable Di Worrell
 * Uniformed Constable Ben Hayward
 * Uniformed Constable Sam Harker
 * Detective Constable Paul Riley
 * Detective Constable Kate Spears