Line Of Duty Season 1 May Have Contained A Sneak Peek At H's Identity

Line of Duty is the gift that apparently keeps on giving. The Season 6 finale may have aired on Sunday but the revelations appear to still be coming in. The latest? Fans may have spotted corrupt cop Ian Buckells golfing with the OCG way back in Season 1 of the show. Over 12 million people tuned into the Season 6 finale where it was revealed that Buckells, played by Nigel Boyle, was H. And just as Kate Fleming said, he’d been hiding under everyone’s nose, seemingly for a decade.

AC-12 (or more specifically Chloe) might work hard but it seems that Line of Duty fans work harder. After it was revealed that Buckells was the Fourth Man, one fan took to Twitter to add some potential evidence of just how long he’d been pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. Twitter user Angela Cookson either watched all six series of Line of Duty again or has an exceptional memory for the show as she tweeted a picture that seems to be Buckells at the Edge Park golf course where Tommy Hunter is apprehended in the same scene. “Hiding in plain sight since Series 1 Episode 5. Buckells going to play golf with Hunter” she wrote. Tommy Hunter was the original big boss of the OCG and went on to gain quite the reputation in the show.

Joe writes that if you want to spot the man who could be Buckells heading out on the golf course for yourself he appears around 42 minutes into the fifth episode of the first series. While the picture that was shared on Twitter was blurry, it’s does resemble Buckells. Whether it definitely is him, isn’t completely clear. But other fans of the show seemed convinced, with one commented under Angela’s post: “Yep already knew this, it’s always the one you least expect and he was hiding in plain sight all the time.”

And it would appear that from the get go Mercurio was leaving little hints for fans that there was more to Buckells’ incompetence than met the eye. When Tony Gates was being investigated in series one Buckells was SIO on the Jackie Laverty case. He was also appointed by Derek Hilton who was later exposed for OCG involvement. His OCG golfing trip also highlights he’s had connections with Tommy Hunter from the start.

For much of Season 6 Buckells was presented as an unassuming and out of his depth fall guy for the OCG. Many thought it was too obvious for him to end up being H. He kept people guessing until the very end.