Chief Superintendent Charles Brownlow also exited during the Beech saga, ending a 16-year stint on the show for actor Peter Ellis; however he would go on to make a guest appearance in 2002.
Part One: Burnside goes undercover for Northumbria Police to investigate corruption inside the department, setting them up by putting four packages of cocaine and a handgun in his boot before taking them on a high-speed car chase through Newcastle.
Bonnet introduces Burnside to local drugs kingpin Saul Anderson, but is subject to a beating and a death threat, until he talks himself out of trouble.
Estate backlash is rife when the overdosing girl Quinnan and Stamp tried to get to hospital dies, and Boulton discovers local dealers are giving uncut heroin away to school kids.
Convinced it is linked to the death of Donna Hunter, he searches the shooting victim's house, and Quinnan is disappointed to learn the girl has been dealing drugs.
However, before he has the chance, the Ortons' club is firebombed, and Santini is shocked when one of the officers assigned by AMIP to investigate the explosion is his old nemesis, DS Rosie Fox.
When Santini manages to locate Jess Orton, he persuades her to make a false confession to bombing the club in order to gain the trust of the suspected drug dealers.
Part Two – Kiss Off: Santini is determined to find out if Jess Orton has grassed on him, and when he breaks into her home to challenge her, he causes her to fatally fall down the stairs.
Meanwhile, Boulton, bored of having to transcribe the tape of a murder confessions, assists when a young girl is run down by a car, and a witness claims that it was no accident.
Part One (A Sprat to Catch a Mackerel): When an apparent drug-related murder leads Operation Trident onto Sun Hill's patch, they suspect Yardie street gangs could be active in the area.
A new scheme by Conway to encourage taxi drivers to help the police bears fruit when an overzealous cabbie brings a 'prisoner', Wesley Carter, to the station, saying he heard him making a drug deal.
Part Two (The Hare and the Hounds): To finance his buy-in to the Yardie drug dealing operation, Jones and his gang rob a building society, with Rickman forced to be getaway driver.
Despite Trident being tipped off, the relief are left lying in wait for them at the wrong bank when Jones spots a cash in-transit van, with a special constable who tries to disarm Rickman being seriously injured.
His failure to investigate the attack on the Chinese restaurant correctly continues to hang over him, but when it appears that the man responsible had prior contact with the Tze family, Smithy finds he may well be in the clear.
Part One: A terrified young woman, Emma Roberts, fears that she has become the victim of a stalker when paint is thrown over her car and her cat is killed in mysterious circumstances.
When Emma makes a claim of rape against her boss Brian Woods, Page investigates the case, and she finds that she too is being drawn into a nightmare world of unseen terror.
After going out to dinner with Dave and Jenny, Emma arrives home to find her house has been broken into, and Page grows a little too close for comfort by inviting her to stay the night.
Part One: Probationary PCs Ben Hayward and Roz Clarke arrive for their first day at Sun Hill, and are subjected to a series of wind-ups by the relief.
Boyden tricks Clarke into thinking that he has hit a pensioner in the surveillance van, while Stamp and Quinnan subject Hayward to the ride of his life in the area car.
Meanwhile, Hagen and Rickman spin Clarke a story about 'nipper' Cryer, the famous bum-pinching sergeant, and Klein gets Worrell to pretend to be a dead body in order to wind up Hayward.
Part One: When the relief carry out a routine raid on a nightclub, The Pink Cockatoo, Carver is suspicious after he suspects that a face from his past was present at the scene.
Meanwhile, as investigations continue, Lennox discovers that the body is that of Phillip Macey, one of Roxanne's best friends, who disappeared without trace in the 1990s after a gig at The Pink Cockatoo.
Roach's old-school police methods begin to yield results, much to the delight of Carver, but before they can catch Mickey red-handed, tragedy strikes.
When Beech's winnings turn out to be counterfeit notes, he confronts Fallon, who offers him a substantial bribe to find out who hijacked one of his lorries, and to get to the stolen shipment back before customs or the police seize it.
Part One: CIB sweep into Sun Hill and suspend the entire CID department with immediate effect, with all of their ongoing cases subsequently transferred to Barton Street.
Meanwhile, Stamp, Quinnan and Klein attend the scene of a second beating, another three masked men attacking local villain Frank McBride outside the back of his club.
Meanwhile, McAllister maliciously ruins Hollis's plans for the Sun Hill Christmas Party, by getting the pub landlord's son arrested on drugs charges.