Spender

After an undercover operation goes wrong in London, Spender's partner is injured. It is felt that Spender should lie low for a while and Spender is reluctantly sent back to his native Newcastle for what he thinks is a one off assignment to try and get evidence against a local businessman, Raymond Price, who the police have been unable to incriminate. Returning home Spender also encounters his ex wife and two girls.

Spender goes undercover on an oilrig as a fitters mate after a worker is murdered and his body washes up on shore. As Spender gets near the truth he finds the bad guys closing in on him, once he discovers the death is to do with a drug smuggling operation. The assignment is thrown into chaos when Spender's youngest daughter is accidentally injured when visiting his flat.

A group of criminals from the South have come up North to join forces with some local criminals to pull a raid on a security van. Spender follows the gang, but they decide to pull the raid earlier than expected leaving Spender and the police to act quickly. Keith meanwhile is refusing to accept the symptoms of his multiple sclerosis.

Spender is put in charge of security of a female politician during an election as she has been receiving threats. Spender finds his own life is on the line to keep the politician alive as attempts are made on her life.

A young student who Spender is God father to is killed in a motorbike accident and it is found she was on drugs. Meanwhile a known drug courier is arrested coming into the country. Spender poses as an ex army buddy of the courier and then teams up with another north east detective to try and find out who is manufacturing the drugs that killed the student.

A nightclub owner has been recruiting young girls as dancer for work abroad. However, the girls are them going missing. Spender poses as a potential nightclub owner and goes to the shady nightclub owner Palmer for help in setting up his business. With Stick's help a club is set up and Spender teams up with one of the missing girl's sister to try and uncover what has happened to the missing girls.

When Stick is up in court, Spender sees a former boxer whom he used to admire. Spender befriends the man and finds out that the ex boxer is now a fist fighter and that the underground promoter has a hold over him. Spender tries to find a way to help him and his family using the promoter's daughter's drug habit and with a little help from Stick's sex life to trap the promoter and free his new friend from his hold.

Stick gets involved in a dodgy deal involving stolen jewellery and looks the prime suspect when the man he was doing the deal with is murdered. Spender must try and clear his friend's name. However the only man who can help him free Stick is refusing to co-operate, Meanwhile Spender's eldest is feeling unsettled in Newcastle.

2nd Season Winter 1992

Spender doesn't get off to the best of starts with his new boss Gillespie when Spender is involved in a close protection operation involving members of the government. Spender's problems mount when he finds that Frances has a new man in her life and his cellmate Spud against his former business partner unwittingly involves newly freed Stick in a vendetta. The local council panics over the recent incidents that Stick and Spud have been involved in, and as the Prime Minister is due in the area soon, Spender is assigned to get to the bottom of the incidents and try and keep Stick's name clean.

Spender is undercover at a glass factory tailing a man believed to have been involved in a security van robbery, but has found nothing to tie the man, Phelan with the crime. Meanwhile after a gig with Keith's band Spender drops a friend of Keith's girlfriend home and she is beaten up. Keith's friend, Blakey, runs an illegal fly posting outfit and he is at war with another outfit run by a man called Duffy, so with Stick's help Spender sets out to catch Duffy. Spender then finds out that Phelan is not who he thought he was.

Spender helps a friend of Keith's and his wife who are in trouble with local drug dealer Mick McDonna, who the police have never been able to pin anything on. Upon further investigation Spender finds corruption in the drugs squad, with an officer being bribed by McDonna. Spender sets out to nail McDonna at any price.

Spender takes some leave and looks up his Aunt Mabel. Instead of a quiet break, Spender is asked to find her son Robbie who has been missing for eight months and has spent most of his life in trouble. Spender's investigations lead him to Robbie who was involved with a gang of known criminals. Robbie though is reluctant to trust Spender, as once Spender was forced to arrest his own cousin. However the gang are trying to get to Robbie through Spender and threaten his family.

Kenny Cooper, a former striker for Newcastle United has gone missing shortly after arriving home in Newcastle from Italy to have an injury looked at. Spender is assigned to track down the missing footballer, with the brief that he is allowed to talk to no one else about the case.

Spender is becoming disillusioned, as all hell seems to break loose around him. Frances is on jury duty and is being threatened to give a not guilty verdict against the man on trial in a fraud case. Gillespie is putting pressure on Spender to nick his mates and his kids despise him too after he refuses to get involved in a ram raid he has watched happening that costs the life of an old man, and on top of this Keith's shop is robbed. Meanwhile Stick has tracked down the gang who did the ram raid and Spender sets out to take his revenge.

3rd Series Winter 1993

Spender has a new girlfriend, Sandy, who unknown to him is married and Frances announces she is getting married again, to Eric. Meanwhile, women have been getting attacked in a local park and Spender is assigned. Stick, who has only just escaped a prison sentence (again), gets involved with some hot jewellery and goes into business with his new girlfriend, Eileen and Keith has a new woman in his life in the shape of courier Emily. Spender also looks into a local bootlegging operation after Keith bought a bootleg copy of one of his own albums.

Spender investigates the attempted murder of a runaway teenage boy who fell from a cliff after being harassed by some teenagers as witnessed by Spender's daughters. Spender's investigations lead him to a charitable trust, which has Gillespie on its steering committee.

Spender is assigned to dig some dirt on Tommy Thornton, who's name keeps cropping up, but the police have been unable to get any evidence against. Thornton has been blackmailing a local ice hockey star after finding out that the player is gay, and getting him to throw matches. Spender finds himself falling in love with Thornton's wife, thus complicating the situation, but before Spender can nail Thornton, he flees after the ice hockey player refuses to throw a big match, but not before leaving his wife in hospital.

Spender is being watched by C.I.D. as his affair with Janet Thornton deepens. Meanwhile Gillespie has been getting strange presents and is then kidnapped, by a face from his past. Spender's curiosity is aroused by a phone call from Gillespie claiming to be visiting his father, who he had told Spender was dead, and he sets out to find his boss.

Spender investigates a series of car thefts, one of which ended up with one of D.S. Boyd's dogs being killed. Boyd has also decided to go undercover himself in a bid to track down the criminals responsible for his dog's death, but is caught by the gang. Keith meanwhile could be charged with having under age sex, when Spender discovers Emily is only fifteen years old. Stick, meanwhile decides to go legal and open a jewellers shop, but it is robbed on it's opening day.

The man set to testify against a local builder; Moran, in a corruption trial vanishes despite being under protection, and is later found dead. Spender goes undercover as a criminal in the local prison to try and gain information from an ex employee of Moran's. Meanwhile Stick is fleeing for his life when he falls behind is his rent for his jewellers shop and cannot contact Spender. Janet is becoming uneasy about Frances and she leaves Spender. Frances reveals that her marriage to Eric is over and tells Spender that she wants him back. In prison Spender has learned enough to convict Moran, and Moran decides Spender must die and has a bomb planted in his car, with Frances accidentally being the victim.

Christmas Special

Spender is sent to Marseille to escort Tommy Thornton back to the UK after he has been arrested in France. Whilst escorting his prisoner back there is an accident and Thornton is apparently killed in the crash. However, Thornton is alive and well and has staged the whole charade. Spender, along with Stick decides to investigate and track Thornton down and bring him back to Britain, and justice.