Bully Boys

Laura is looking after Greg Willis, the ten-year-old son of Harry’s friends who are away on holiday. Greg is very withdrawn and doesn’t want to got to school. While waiting to collect him, Laura sees Greg’s games teacher, Nick Fuller, bullying him. Laura and Rocky decide to give Nick a taste of his own medicine. Rocky arranges a rugby match, with his friends acting as players in both teams. Taking advantage of the fact that Nick fancies her, Laura invites him to the match, saying that a friend (Rocky) will be playing. Rocky claims he has just twisted his ankle and cannot play. A substitute is needed and Nick is the only person they have got. With Greg surreptitiously watching from the touch-line, Rocky’s mates in the opposing team take great delight in tackling Nick as violently as possible and roughing him up at every opportunity, just to let him know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of bullying.

Ken and Harry are involved in a more serious case of bullying. Beth Benson, who works as a cleaner at The Drum (the local pub), asks Ken for help. She and her husband, Jack, are being plagued by a noisy neighbour who insists on playing loud music and who owns a ferocious Alsatian that is forever barking. Ken learns that Beth and Jack have been offered an alternative house by their landlord, but Jack, a keen gardener, refuses to move because it would mean leaving his beloved garden. Ken suspects that Geraldine Watters, the neighbour, is being used by the landlord, Charlie Luce, as a “winkler” to make the Bensons’ life a misery so that they will move.

Meanwhile, Harry is approached by James Marian, a property developer who says that he is developing the nearby marina. Ever the optimist, Harry tries to win the security contract for the development. But Ken sees Marian visiting Luce’s deserted office and suspects that they are working together. He makes further enquiries and discovers that Luce is doing time in Nottingham Prison. When Harry challenges Marian and reveals what he knows, Marian turns nasty and threatens Harry.

The Bensons’ garden is vandalised. Jack suspects that Geraldine was responsible. She tearfully denies this, but she seems very frightened and clearly knows who the culprit is. Jack collapses in the garden and is taken to hospital. Ken goes to see Charlie Luce in prison. Luce strenuously denies that he has been getting Marian to harass his tenants. He is very angry to learn that Marian is trying to evict them so he can sell the houses. He remembers that Marian, who works as his financial advisor, had got him to sign a Power of Attorney, giving Marian the right to act on Luce’s behalf in case quick decisions were needed while Luce was in jail. Clearly Marian is now abusing his power.

Geraldine, a mature student who is paying her own way through university, admits that Marian has been paying her to frighten the Bensons, but she thought she was acting on Luce’s instructions. When she learns the true facts she changes sides. Harry gets a couple of his mates from the pub to kidnap Marian and take him to a car scrapyard that one of them owns. By threatening to crush the car that he is in, and with Harry and Geraldine watching, Ken “persuades” Marian to sign a release from the Power of Attorney and to resign. They cheekily give him a gold clock as a token farewell present! Luce agrees to pay for the Bensons’ garden to be restored.

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1999

Page last modified: 17 December 2008, 23:48