Superintendent Ted Hastings (played by Adrain Dunbar) has been manning the hold of AC-12 on Line of Duty as the team battle against the ever impossible to capture balaclava group, which the team eventually discovered after going up against who they believed to be a lone ranger.
In a season premiere twist of the BBC drama, it was revealed the leader of the group, John Corbett (Stephen Graham), was in fact an undercover police officer, working at ground level to try and discover who the mastermind behind the criminal activity is.
Believing his team were taking a lenient approach about how far he could go to reach the top, Corbett broke contact with the force, with his most recent line of communication being DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), telling him his boss was not to be trusted.
However, although Arnott remains dubious, there could be a possibility a shock move from Hastings in his past does in fact line up with Corbett’s theory the superintendent is the criminal mastermind, H.
He’s got a very interesting tale to tell
Jed Mercurio
At the end of season four, Hastings shot dead the lone ranger they believed to be the only masked villain terrorising the police force, before AC-12 discovered there was a criminal network.
Though, not everyone was convicted Hastings did the right thing as the man behind the mask could have served as a witness and an inside intel about the workings of the group and who the real H could be.
The superintendent then ruled ACC Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins) as H, putting an end to the ongoing case, with it seeming Hastings could have had shot dead the balaclava man as well as identifying the late Derek Hilton as the mastermind to throw his team off the scent he is H.
Speaking after the finale of the fourth season and asked if Hastings’ actions in the final scenes would link in with future storylines, Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, 53, said: “He’s got a very interesting tale to tell.
“He can point the finger at higher up people and potentially break this open. Or was it just in the heat of the moment to protect his officers?” the writer continued, offering another perspective to the shooting.
However, he added of the shooting resurfacing: “It could possibly come back and haunt him. But only possibly,
