A THIEF tackled to the ground by The Bill legend Reg Hollis in a bizarre arrest caught on camera has been jailed.
TV star Jeff Stewart, who starred in the hit police drama for 24 years, stepped in to help cops following a foot-chase.
Actor Jeff Stewart helped tackle a shoplifter to the ground in a real life arrest[/caption]
He played Reg Hollis on hit police drama The Bill for 24 years[/caption]
He was captured straddling shoplifter Mohamed Diallo in Southampton in a heroic bid to stop him escaping.
After Stewart was thanked by cops, he replied: “Well, I was in The Bill for 24 years, in the TV show. Yeah, I played Reg.”
Diallo, 29, has now been jailed for 20 weeks after he admitted stealing alcohol and food in five separate incidents.
Sentencing, magistrate Alan Foster told him: “You are a persistent thief with a record that is unenviable.
“Whatever help we have tried to give you since you have been sentenced before and currently, you have turned it down and you have carried on stealing from shops to allow your habit of hard drugs to continue.
“We can find nothing that shows remorse on your part, you keep falling back into your way of life when even offered many opportunities that others take.
“(You are a) persistent offender over a period of time, you do not engage with services offered, you continue to be a blight on small local shopkeepers.
“As such you pass the custodial threshold.”
Stewart was one of the longest lasting actors on The Bill, appearing from 1984 to 2008.
He appeared alongside Graham Cole’s PC Tony Stamp and Mark Wingett’s character DC Jim Carver.
Following his departure from the show, Stewart starred in 2009’s Dead Man Running, 2010’s Tomorrow and Under Jakob’s Ladder in 2011 – where he managed to bag himself Best Actor at the Manhattan Film Festival.
Speaking about leaving the drama previously, he said: “I didn’t see a counsellor, it was evident I was OK and I never worried how it would affect my career.
“I thought, ‘I have a choice, you can either stagnate or blossom.”
Stewart told officers “I was in The Bill for 24 years, in the TV show”[/caption]
The suspect was detained in Southampton[/caption]
