Smithy gets stabbed!

Smithy gets stabbed!
Smithy gets stabbed!

It's not looking good for Smithy in the episode of The Bill showing on ITV1 on 8 April...

No! He and PC Nate Roberts get a tip-off that there’s going to be a girl fight in the park, but it’s bad information and instead they find a couple of lads beating up a girl. Nate and Smithy split up and each chase after one of the lads on foot. But this doesn’t work out well for Smithy when he gets stabbed, and his attacker escapes leaving him bleeding on the ground with two stab wounds.

Will he survive?

It's certainly not looking very good for him. He's rushed to hospital and Nate feels very guilty about the attack.

These episodes deal with the shocking levels of crime that go on in a lot of modern school today?

Yes, I think it’s important to see the consequences of things like knife crime. If anyone who watches is then deterred from carrying a knife as a result, then we’ve done a good job. I’ve got two small children, so I do worry about what our schools are going to be like by the time they’re teenagers. Getting a black eye or a fat lip from a fight at school is one thing, but someone dying over a stolen pencil case because they’ve been stabbed is just extreme.

On a lighter note, did you enjoy seeing your co-stars Lisa Maxwell and Patrick Robinson take part in February's Let's Dance For Comic Relief?

I thought they were fantastic, but the winner Robert Webb was a tough act to compete against. His Flashdance was scary, amazing and alarming all at the same time! Would I consider taking part next time? To be honest I haven’t got the legs for a leotard!

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.