Surprise surprise - Kirsty has a Mini Sausage Roll in the oven! Discuss the Archers here

[PseudoBadger]

Happy New Year to you all.

I thought that Berrow got demolished?

I must have missed Stefan telling David and Jennifer- why did they do nothing/ not believe him?

Stefan surely would know about the court case and that Berrow farm had closed.

Wasn't David chairman of the flood committee or something?

If so, surely he deserves a roasting (along with Jennifer) for conveniently forgetting about Stefan's evidence? Freda died FFS.

Will they panic and keep their heads down if they spot Stephan in the village?

As far as he's concerned, Rob's still a manager at Berrow.

Berrow - gone! Yes of course.

But S presumably knows that Rob's still working for Justin. Doesn't necessarily mean he knows anything else (eg commiserated about the divorce).

I must have missed Stefan telling David and Jennifer- why did they do nothing/ not believe him?

They told Charlie.

Stefan turned up at Rob's new front door, didn't he? If he knew where to find him be must be up to speed with his life!

Somewhat belatedly, I have just googled for images of 'culvert' and the selection provided all look massive. What was Rob 'stuffing the culvert' with? He would have needed a tractor load of sandbags for it to be effective, surely? and then it would have been obvious that the culvert had indeed been, er, stuffed. Sorry to be so late to the debate, but can anyone enlighten me on how this particular plot line would actually work, engineering-wise?

Afair Cromwell, it included large sheets of corrugated metal.

Wouldn't sheets of corrugated iron also be a giveaway - such things don't get there by accident? Or was it never it question that the culvert was stuffed? I can't stop typing it now!

That the culvert was blocked isn't in question (I don't think). But whether it happened by accident or design is what no-one but Stefan really knows. He told Jenny/David who passed on the info to Charlie (without identifying their source). When C asked Rob to 'interview' the staff, Stefan mysteriously returned to Poland. Ed later cleared the debris from the side of the road (no questions asked).

So Ed, Charlie, Jenny and David are all ellegedly complicit in covering up Rob's crime, as well as Stefan. How will this play out I wonder?

"Cromwell I think this culvert ran under a road and wasn't especially big? Although if it's the same one Charlie nearly drowned in I assume it was big enough to stuff a human body in. I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie returns at some point.

A culvert near us carries a stream under the road to the river. Bits of tree debris blocks it enough to cause the road to flood.
Charlie went down into the ditch on the night of the flood and was nearly killed dragging out some corrugated sheet and other stuff which Ed later found and Rob told him to get rid of.
Stefan told D and J (who passed the info to C) that he saw Rob blocking the culvert.
I don't think Rob knows that D & J know. He successfully got rid of Stefan and Charlie so he thought he was safe.

Now we need David or Jennifer to spot Stefan lurking round the village and have their memories re-awaken.

The culvert needn't be huge. Once C cleared the debris the rush of water dragged him enough into the culvert for him to have drowned in the rushing water if Adam hadn't pulled him out.
I think the culvert was about the width of a typical ditch. If the ditch is full of pent up water then that would be enough, especially once his foot got trapped.

Thanks everybody.

So Ed, Charlie, Jenny and David are all ellegedly complicit in covering up Rob's crime

J & D told Charlie about their anonymous source. David also reported the blocked culvert to the environment agency (?).

Charlie got Ed to clear the debris so that Berrow wouldn't be blamed for the blockage (and in the absence of any proof that it was definitely Rob).

The blocked culvert didn't cause Freda's death. Can't pin that on knob!!

I dunno Anti. I thought there was general agreement at the time that the flood was worse than it should have been as a direct result of the blocked culvert?

I don't think so - I think it just blocked the main road so was harder for help to get through

Yes, I think David said that. The blockage caused the water to flow along the road towards the village so the damage was greater.
To my mind, the weakness of the plot is that David never recalled Rob's extreme agitation when he saw the flood water, his refusal to cooperate with D and Harrison and then going off in the boat for hours. As soon as David heard what Stefan had to say he should have pieced it together.

David never recalled Rob's extreme agitation when he saw the flood water

Indeed enoch - Rob's determination to get out of there as quickly as possible! He knew what was coming.

What's more annoying is the dropping of the whole investigation into the cause. Didn't they set up a committee and plan a report? I know there was a lot going on at the time but I don't remember any conclusion?

Well no one seems to have remembered knobs weird behaviour when he was being hailed the hero of the flood

Aren't Adam's herbal leys another development that can be attributed to the flood? When fields were flooded (that shouldn't have been flooded) he attributed it at the time to the degeneration of the soil and vowed to do something about it. The next time Rob undermines the work Adam's doing I hope Adam remembers to mention that.

Ambridge floods timeline here (BBC link).

BBC blog post on Stefan here, but it doesn't add much to what we've already established on this thread.

It would take a lawyer to say whether Rob could be held responsible in law for anything that happened that night, but as a layperson I would say he must have some culpability for Charlie's nearly fatal accident and Freda's death. She was trapped in her car in rising flood waters and had to be pulled out by Alan. She was suffering from shock and (I would have thought) possibly hypothermia. She died in hospital a couple of days later, IIRC, from a massive heart attack, having contracted pneumonia. (Lowfield summaries for that week here.)

Good point, Vango! I'd forgotten before looking at the timeline and so forth again that the waters were muddied (as it were) at the time because there were new flood defences nearby and everybody thought they'd saved that area and diverted the waters toward Ambridge.