Kate Spears is one or the more psychologically complicated characters in The Bill. When she first arrived at Sun hill, she appeared to be an attractive young DC who was eager for results. We found out that she had a hard childhood which has toughened her up a bit but usually entails needing more affection later on. To the men, she was either a new challenge or a simple co-worker. The women, however, didn’t give her a second glance. They didn’t really consider her a friend or a threat. As time passed, Kate became better friends with most of CID. Duncan and Danny were quite friendly with her, Mickey wanted to get her into bed (didn’t waste time, either) and Paul just regarded her as a person. Debbie, along with many WPCs, thought that she was something of a silly girl who wanted to sleep her way to the top and that she could use her for her own purposes. This was the beginning. 

It became apparent that Kate had caught the eye of two men in the nick - DC Mickey Webb and Supt. Tom Chandler. Apart from the one night stand that led to nothing, to his disappointment, Mickey didn’t get anywhere with Kate. He never gave up his love for her (and I do not use the word love lightly) but he didn’t actually try to win her over either. Not only because he was Kate’s superior or because he was the "sexy older man" but for underlying reasons, Tom got a lot further. But we’ll get back to that.

Kate was always a friendly person. She wasn’t bitchy like Debbie or stand off-ish like Paul, she didn’t exclude people for superficial reasons. So, she was basically a nice person. Once that’s established, we move to the darker side. An advantage women often have over men in the workplace is the ease with which they can use their sexuality to get what they want. Well, to be honest, most women do use this advantage. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Kate is one of the latter cases. She thought that maybe she’d like to stop being the nice girl to a station full of people who didn’t accept her anyway and just move upwards using Tom (or anyone else for that matter). Not that he helped; he started it! Touching her arm, an extra smile and encouraging comment her and there. He was just allowed to get away with it. The barely subtle flirting usually fell on deaf ears to her knowledge but not in the case of the other coppers. The women especially started to criticize her and talk behind her back about her behaviour. They over dramatised a lot, though. This leads us to an interesting psychological situation. 

It has been found that when some one is told they are something over and over, they begin to believe it. For example, if I told a girl she was useless over and over again, every day, she would begin to think it is true. No matter how strong you try to be, your mind will always give in under the pressure. Now, once a person thinks something, it’s only natural for them to follow it up with the appropriate behaviour. So, if this girl has begun to believe she is in fact useless, she would most likely start to give up activities, be "lazy" around the house and stop doing work in general. Let us apply this to Kate. 

She has been bitched about, behind her back, for quite a long time. She still has no proper friends to speak of in the nick and she isn’t moving anywhere fast by being a good copper. Suddenly, there’s just no point in staying the nice girl. Debbie McAllister set her up to make or break an operation with some very bad advice "Do whatever it takes". This, taken to mean sleep with the suspect to get incriminating information, could potentially get Kate into a lot of trouble. But Debbie had been really nice to her lately, hadn’t she? And she did SEEM like the only good friend she had at the moment, didn’t she? So Kate took her advice and while working undercover, put it into practice. Leaving the restaurant she went to with the suspect in a cab, she was seen kissing him rather, um, passionately. They proceeded back to his house where she went inside and nothing was heard from them until the next morning. Although Kate swore she slept in the guest bedroom (for future reference, she had), the man’s foreign cleaners said they heard them up all night "making passionate love". This would be considered entrapment as Kate had received information while she was staying at the suspect’s house which lead to his arrest. As Alex Cullen put it "It doesn’t matter if it’s true, it’s how it looks!" Debbie, obviously, got off scot free, blaming it on Kate.

Now, after this little episode, anyone else might have had a nervous breakdown but Kate just decided to take yet another leaf out of Debbie’s Book of Badness. She upped her flirting with Tom Chandler (forgetting Mickey entirely by the wayside) and eventually got him out on a date. Now, Tom was not a bad man. He really wasn’t. He was very ambitious and ended up a bit cruel and twisted but he wasn’t a bad man. Just stressing the point, here. So, when a beautiful junior officer is only too willing to go home with him after a night out, he resists. See what moral fiber that took? Anyway, this understandably upset Kate. Her last resort had failed. 

But...! Tom Chandler isn’t as strong as we first thought. In the weeks to come, we discovered that Kate did, in fact, sleep with him. Heavens to Mercy, no! Well, from the sordid little hotel room visits, a sort of relationship is formed. This made Kate feel a little better but ultimately, she’s not happy. She didn’t get into the relationship in her own way; she acted just like Debbie! Manipulative and sneaky. Not to a Debbie extent but she still did rely on Tom’s testosterone levels a bit. Anyway, she was in what we can loosely refer to as a relationship and she had no real friends in the nick.

But, before this sordid little affair kicked off, there was the Rape Case. Oh god, here we go. This is like hell for Kate. There are rumours everywhere about Kate and Tom which stings even more than before because she HAD thrown away her pride and, well, thrown herself at him which had failed (to most, it would seem like a mutual thing and that they were just two attracted adults but, while that was true, Kate originally had no intention of sleeping with him). So, not in fact knowing anything about their relationship and just being bullies, the rest of the nick are being really horrible to her. What a bad time to be forced to do a copper game show with half the station! Even though Kate wins them the prize of a weekend away at a hotel, only Insp. Monroe congratulates her. It’s as if they just don’t WANT to be her friends (which is exactly how they feel, little b******s). 

So.... facts recount (it’s all rather complicated, isn’t it?):
- there have been rapes in the Sun hill area recently which Liz Rawton is investigating
- Kate requested to be on this investigation and not enjoy the weekend with the others but was forced to participate *sigh*
- everyone hates her and she feels degraded from being rejected by Tom

Right! So, there they are, at his fancy hotel. There’s a male and a female guide for the group, two young go-getters (future reference: guy smokes pot, girl attractive and in relationship with guy, apparently). They organise a blind singles date thing for the second night. The other winners of the game show (from nicks far far away) are at the hotel, too. Everyone is mixing. Now, a gorgeous young DC Peter Cork sees Kate and decides that he’ll slip Tommy (one of the guides) a tenner to get him paired with her. Unfortunately, Cass Rickman takes a shine to Peter and does the same but earlier in the evening. So Tommy figures, highest bidder, last offer and pairs Peter with Kate. This annoys Cass a lot. Understatement of the century but that’s how I’m putting it. She calls Kate all these outrageous things to Roz (tag along!!) assuming that Kate must have bribed Tommy as well. Tut tut... bad Cass. Almost makes you think she DESERVED to be killed. (NB - Some people have condemned me for that comment. To them I say, DEAL WITH IT! Cass was such a cow to Kate over that weekend and significantly contributed to Kate’s unhappiness at the station. As far as I’m concerned, she wasn’t punished ENOUGH!) Anyway, Peter is handsome and sexy and interested (plus a great dancer) so Kate is really happy with her match. He’s the perfect rebound man! Gorgeous, there for a weekend, lives far away... what more could she want? They are seen to be kissing and generally acting like teenagers on a couch somewhere (in plain view, of course!). June says something to the effect of "She’s a nice girl underneath." This implies that June was involved in all that gossiping... bad June! And Kate plainly says to her “I am living up to expectations... aren’t I meant to be a slag/slapper etc etc etc or similar?” Cut June! Btw, at some point she has a nice salsa with Insp. Monroe.. very cute. The picture of innocence. Shows Tania’s a dancer! Anyway, she arranges to go back to her room (that she is sharing with someone..... Cass? Roz? Vicky? Someone to that effect. ROZ!! I remember) and for Peter to join her in ten minutes. When he makes his way up there, June spots him so he pretends to be going into his room. So now there are NO witnesses!! So, he enters with a bottle of whisky. Kate has subsequently decided she doesn’t want to do anything because of her bad rep already. He persuades her to have a drink. They do and she manages to tell him “Bedtime!” He asks for one kiss and she agrees, grossing out everyone. Just mentioning, she’s wearing this gorgeous black top and split skirt. Couldn’t help himself, I guess. She says reminds him he asked for one kiss and he start rabbiting on about how she had been leading him on blah blah blah and he gets her to the bed. He starts to push her down... and Kate protests! Obviously! She starts screaming and trying to get him off her. She manages to escape (with a bit of a hickey still on her neck... rather ironic reminder) into the bathroom and lock the door. Eventually, Peter leaves but Kate is still petrified. Who wouldn’t be? Sirens: Attempted rape, attempted rape!! She comes out of the bathroom and clears the room up then goes to bed. When she comes back, Roz is dismissive and cold. Predictable. The next morning, they discover that the young female guide was found raped and murdered near the hotel. Kate is immediately suspicious of Peter. But you see, she doesn’t feel she can tell anybody. Who would believe her anyway? The slapper trying to sleep her way to the top. She doesn’t feel as though she can tell anyone. Well, more that they’ll believe her.

Anyway, the holiday finishes abruptly and everyone is sent back to the nick. Kate starts work on the Rape case with Liz Rawton. To her absolute horror, her attempted rapist is on the case! Peter seems like a really nice guy which discourages Kate even more from telling someone; who would believe her once they’d spoken to him? There’s also the fact that he said to her "No one will believe you" which kind of put her in that frame of mind. As the case progresses, Kate finds more and more "evidence" which points to Peter being the rapist. Just bits and pieces, nothing that would stand up in court but it scares her, nonetheless. What if he decides to turn on her again? This is a lot of stress for her to deal with, combined with earlier feelings of rejection, fear and loneliness. And she’s taking Temazepam to deal with all this. NOT GOOD! She said to the pharmacist that she’d taken it before. I do not know if this is true but iof it is our girl Kate has lead a very sad life indeed! But come on! All this crap from work could have made her kill herself with those pills!! And people have the nerve to defend Cass and that lot.... 

Then one night Peter breaks into Kate’s flat, claiming he only wants a drink with her and that if she should tell anyone, they’d just dismiss her because his story is so plausible. Mickey, drunk as usual, turns up at her doorstep. Kate tries to get him to come inside but Peter, knowing exactly how to play the situation, walks up behind Kate to makes his presence noticed. Mickey sees him and storms off. By this point, Kate would be feeling really desperate and afraid. Peter does leave after pointing out what a bad position she’s in and how she can do absolutely nothing about it. Relieved that he’s left but now even more afraid and hopeless, Kate shuts the door. 

Further suspicious circumstances arising in the investigation prompt Kate to watch Peter even closer. This is a very brave move considering how she’s feeling at the moment towards him and in general. She finds herself following Peter into a warehouse where he is shot by a suspect. Kate is nearly caught but Des and Cass show up to chase the baddie away. Peter is taken to hospital and Liz invites Kate to stay at her place as she’s pretty rattled. Kate awakes to find Liz being attacked by a man associated with Peter. Egads!! They manage to subdue him and everyone’s fine. Fabulous but, by now, Kate has been through a hell ova lot of stress, don’t you think? This has been quite an ordeal. Anyway, cutting a long case short, they catch the real rapist and Peter dies in hospital. So Kate was wrong and an innocent man is dead. Not because of her but he did attempt to rape her so she’s kind of emotionally attached. 

Ok, stop to recap again: 
- Kate has just been through a really big ordeal full of realisations about where she really stands with her colleagues and about herself, how she copes with all this
- She’s been totally over stressed (taking temazepam, people!!)
- She’s actually been attacked by a man she liked (but didn’t know, evidently)
- Mickey’s even more annoyed with her (she doesn’t want a relationship but she doesn’t want any bad blood between them either)
- She still has pretty much no friends in the Station

Right, the situation has become a lot more complicated emotionally. Before she was just rejected and alone. Now she’s rejected, alone, hurt (by Peter) and just generally dejected.

So, after all of this, we can get to a point I made earlier; Tom getting with Kate. To her, this is a release. It’s what she "wanted" in the first place. When I say wanted, I mean she set out to do but failed. Tom Chandler just couldn’t help himself. Any guys reading will probably agree that, given the chance, they’d sleep with her in a second. It’s a no brainer. She’s gorgeous, young and best of all, she makes the first major move. No seedy old man guilt. You have to admit, there’s a bit of an age gap between those two. Anyway, because she’s been so stressed and down, this is a release because her goal is accomplished. And because she’s been rejected by pretty much the whole station and Mickey (who was her cute little lapdog) seems to have lost interest, too. So when she got with Tom, it was like someone accepted her and loved her. I severely doubt the presence of any actual love in this relationship but, as I’m a girl, I understand Kate better than Tom. She’s clever and she knows it’s not a proper relationship but she also needs the attention. Tom doesn't give a flying f*** about her as a person, he just wants to get into her pants, so to speak.

Right, while this (rather short) relationship is in what we could attempt to call full swing, Mickey suspects that Tom is seeing a woman during hours and the like. He then decides that this mystery girl is probably "closer to home" than he first thought so he tells Kate that he thinks it’s Debbie. To Kate this is amusing but also a little worrying because she doesn’t want to be discovered especially by Mickey. She doesn’t want the station to know that she actually was sleeping with Tom and she doesn’t want Mickey to be the one to figure it out because she knows he still loves her. So, when Mickey decides to follow Debbie going to meet a man for lunch, Kate doesn’t know whether to be relieved that he’s concentrating on someone else or that he’ll see that the man isn’t Tom and start "other enquiries". 

Still on Mickey, we come to Derek Conway’s tragic demise. Simply, he went to a meeting in place of Tom (while said scoundrel was "entertaining" Kate) with Mickey and he was car bombed and killed while Mickey watched. This fuels Mickey’s desire to "bring Chandler down" later on. For the moment, he just hates Tom for being off with some girl while Conway was killed when it should have been him.

Just an interesting little comment to think about. In the Simpson case, Mickey tells Kate that she is the only person he can trust to do a certain interview with. To Kate, this sounds kind of pathetic since she’s off with Tom and hasn’t breathed a word about it to Mickey. This may well make her feel guilty and helps her make the decision to dump Tom. 

So, after a long day with a lot of outside pressure from racist attacks etc, Tom gives everyone a congratulatory speech and most head off down the pub. Kate and Mickey (with some others) however, stay behind in CID to have a quick drink and then join the others. Mickey says a few things to Kate that make her seriously think that she should end her relationship with Tom. On top of these comments, she feels as though she’s Tom's plaything and that he doesn’t care about her. Now, she knows that she didn’t get into the relationship for love and affection. She did it for attention which she needed at the time. And she doesn’t like to be treated as though she’s an object, either. It’s not like she expects Tom to ask her about her feelings etc but she doesn’t expect to be dismissed and treated badly in front of others either. 

So, onto the best part. She asks Mickey if maybe he wants to make a go of it and pick up where they left off. Mickey is ecstatic! As he well should be. So off he goes to the pub saying he’ll meet her there. Then Kate proceeds to go to Tom’s office and says she wants to break it off and that if he gives her any grief, she’ll tell everyone about them (which, for some reason, he perceives as a threat... think about it). The bastard (sorry) pushes her up against the wall and screams at her. Realising his mistake, he kisses her. Our Kate, thinking to herself "This is the last time I kiss this ^#%@&%!", goes along with him for a moment and then WHAM! Knees him one, to the applause to all girls watching (all guys cringe and say "Yeah... um, he deserved it"). So, evidently, Tom gets over his little handicap and gets out of the station before anything else happens. Kate goes back into CID and has a drink with everyone there (all being reasonably friendly to her). 

We can console ourselves by saying that she must have been happy when it happened. I’m sorry but I am not going to type out what happened, you all know anyway. It’s still too painful for me. Anyway, Kate dies in hospital a few days later. There, I said part of it. Now I have to go cry.

Ok, I’ll be mature for a moment. Ok so, in summary, Kate was:- 
- a naturally friendly, nice girl 
- driven to bad behaviour by stereotyping by colleagues
- driven onwards (past that point) by stresses such as Peter attacking her, having no friends at work, general negativity etc
- she did resolve, in the end, to do what was better for herself by dumping Tom and finally getting with Mickey
I think we can safely say that it really was not Kate’s fault that she acted a bit, um..
Debbie-ish :o)

Kate Spears, a rose amongst the thorns

*ANGIE