After last week's episode of Line Of Duty ended on the MOTHER of all cliffhangers, viewers were left trying to guess which character from Line Of Duty folklore is related to this series’ main character, DCI Jo Davidson. Well now we know that it was indeed one of several Scottish characters who have featured over the years in the show. Tommy Hunter had a high percentage DNA overlap with Davidson - "homozygosity", associated with a parental relationship, which means John Thomas (Tommy) Hunter is almost certainly Jo Davidson's father. But how does that implicate her in the broader OCG plot? And does she even know?
Who is Tommy Hunter>
Tommy Hunter in season one of Line of Duty
Tommy Hunter was head of an Organised Crime Group and one of the main antagonists in season one of Line Of Duty. He was Glasweigan, and also proper nasty piece of work, who’s strong association with organised crime plants him firmly at the heart of the conspiracy Hastings and his team are trying to unravel. This would definitely explain Arnott’s furrowed brow and Hasting’s yelp of ‘MOTHER OF GOD,’ when the identity of Davidson’s mysterious relative was revealed.
In season one, he's revealed to be the man pulling the money-laundering, drug-dealing, Jackie Laverty-murdering strings behind the scenes. He's first heard on the phone in season one when Ryan Pilkington hands a burner phone to drug dealer Wesley Duke. Hunter is the angry voice on the other end of the phone, forcing Duke to hand over his money.
He is also revealed to be the man behind the murder of Jackie Laverty, whose throat was slit in front of DCI Gates and her body stored in a freezer, allowing the gang to use her DNA to set up and blackmail corruptible police officers. Dastardly.
In the end, Hunter was arrested after Gates recorded a confession from him, before Gates killed himself.
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Tommy Hunter in season two of Line Of Duty
Hunter entered a witness protection programme at the end of season one, but perished in season two of Line Of Duty following a plot to draw him out of hiding and an attack on the convoy of police cars moving him to a new safe house, engineered by DI 'Dot' Cottan who didn't want his own identity revealed. Of course we never see his actual face before the attack, and his badly burnt body is covered in bandages when he's in hospital before his death. So whether Hunter really, absolutely died in season two remains to be seen.
Tommy Hunter in season six of Line Of Duty
In season six it's revealed that Hunter also has a son, Darren Hunter, who was one of the men implicated, but never charged, with the murder of Lawrence Christopher in a racist attack. So so you're keeping up, this also makes him Jo Davidson's half brother. Got it?
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Who are the other Scottish characters featured in Line Of Duty?
With Davidson’s Scottish heritage in mind, Line Of Duty fans spent last week playing detective and searching for all the Scottish characters featured in the last six series of Line Of Duty.
Apart from Tommy Hunter, here's who we found...
Mike Dryden
Remember former Deputy Chief Constable Mike Dryden from series two? Well he’s currently serving a suspended sentence for perverting the course of justice after he tried to cover up his wife’s speeding ticket. You might also remember that he was the senior officer who Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) was having an affair with, and was involved with the teenager Carly Kirk, who Denton was trying to protect. We can also presume his character is Scottish, like the actor Mark Bonnar who plays him.
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Jayne Akers
DS Janye Akers was a sergeant assigned to the AC-9 Witness Protection Unit. She also played a key role in season two of Line Of Duty, although she only appears a few times in the series. She’s the police officer who asks Denton’s team to assist her in moving an unnamed witness (later revealed to be Tommy Hunter) to a new location. She is murdered in the ensuing hijack of the police convoy. It is later revealed that she had received money from the organised crime group, and was acting on orders from DI Cottan when she set up the ambush on Hunter, and made Denton the fall guy. She was killed as part of the ambush to ensure that she didn’t reveal Cottan’s identity.
It was also revealed in the series that Akers was an old friend of Kate Flemings from training college, and Kate had been having an affair with Akers’ husband, Richard.
DS John Corbett
Yes, we know that John Corbett, played by Stephen Graham was not Scottish - he was born in Northern Ireland, and sent to live in Liverpool after the murder of his mother Anne-Marie McGillis at the hands of an Irish Republican paramilitary group, who had been acting as a police informant for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Her main contact was none other than Chief Superintendent Ted Hastings, who, it is implied, had an affair with McGillis.
The fan theory goes that Davidson was a sibling of Corbett’s, who was sent to live in Scotland with a different relative. It has even been speculated that Hastings could be her father. But that would be a mad plot line too far for even Mercurio - right?
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Who is Jo Davidson’s mother?
We don’t know much about Davidson’s mother, presumably the woman pictured in episode one with Davidson as a girl. Davidson’s records indicate her next of kin is Samantha Davidson, so could that be her mother? Given that the picture of her mother, and Davidson’s family true, appear to be key plot points of the series, we’ll definitely find out more in the next few weeks.