CLAIRE STANTON

'Claire Stanton' is a fictional police officer in the long running ITV drama ''The Bill''. She was played by Clara Salaman from 1999 to 2000.

Contents

Biography

Biography

Claire arrives at Sun Hill as a Detective Sergeant to investigate corruption at the station, which ultimately leads to her exposing DS Don Beech as being a corrupt officer. While at Sun Hill, Claire is involved in an on-off relationship with colleague DS John Boulton. When Beech kills Boulton in a fight and subsequently escapes Claire vows she will track Beech down and bring him to justice. Six months later, Claire returns to CIB as a Detective Inspector when information is received from the New South Wales police that leads her to Sydney, where Beech is now living. Claire goes to Sydney determined to get Beech extradited however, the slippery Beech, evades her again. She finally catches up with him as he is leaving on a boat, but rather than watch him escape again she grabs a shotgun from a nearby armed officer and fires it at the boat, which explodes. With Beech apparently dead Claire resigns from the police force and takes a job working in security.
While working for a security firm, she is tasked with retrieving some documents for an Arab client that were stolen during a £6 million robbery of a safe deposit centre in Mayfair. After getting information about the heist from a former colleague in the force, Claire applies pressure to the manager, who the police are convinced is involved. He agrees to get the documents back but Claire is shocked when she sees Beech's girlfriend, Frankie delivering the documents. Convinced that her nemesis faked his death back in Sydney, Claire begins to dig further. Later, she receives an anonymous text message telling her Beech will be meeting a contact in a local cemetery. When Claire arrives at the cemetery, Beech sees her first and bundles her into the boot of his car and takes her to an abandoned MOD bunker. Beech is desperate to find out how Claire found him and tortures her but she reveales nothing. Instead, she begins to play mind games with him trying to split him from Frankie. When Beech leaves, Frankie tries to kill Claire by taking her outside and running her over, this fails and Claire escapes and flags down a passing car. Unfortuantely the driver is Beech and he takes her back inside. The police are closing in though, two members of Beech's gang are arrested and evidence is found that leads them to the bunker, where Claire and Beech are now trapped after the lock jams. Beech escapes again, up a ventialtion shaft, and watched from nearby as Claire is taken away in an ambulance.
Determined to find Beech, Claire discharges herself from the hospital. She follows Beech's contact who unknowingly leads her right to him. She tells Beech that he is being double crossed but is knocked out when his accomplice returns. She regains consciousness just in time to follow them and confronts them on the top of a London office building. In the ensuing struggle, Beech is stabbed with a needle containing morphine and Claire manages to get his gun. Beech taunts her to kill him but she will not give him the easy way out as she sees it and calls the police. Beech is sentenced to life and as he is led away again taunts Claire telling her she has nothing left in her life now either.