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| Stephen Warren | |
| Series: | Life on Mars (UK) |
| Actor: | Tom Mannion |
| US equivalent: | Elliot Casso |
Stephen Warren is a club owner and criminal boss in Manchester. After naively arresting one of Warren's men, Sam Tyler learns that Warren has an arrangement with the police where they keep off his back and he keeps them informed about criminals and drug dealers. Sam is unhappy with the situation, knowing that arrangements like this reduce the public's trust in the police force in the future. Gene ignores him at the time and Warren pays them both off. After thinking about it and trying to give it to his younger mother, who, despite her debt problems with one of Warren’s men, refuses, Sam returns to the club to give the money back. He also mentions the rent collector who has been bullying Ruth, to which Warren offers to ‘deal with it’.
Later on, Sam and Gene have a talk and Gene explains about when he joined the force and found out an experienced, well-liked superior was taking bribes. The young Gene reported it, but revealed that it wasn’t long before he took his own first "back-hander". After hearing about how much it hurts inside, Sam asks Gene if he would like to do something about it.
Gene agrees and they go off to Warren’s club, bursting into his office and interrupting him in the middle of a gay sex act with a "rent-boy". Warren is furious and demands an explanation. Sam and Gene respond by arresting him for an earlier crime and dragging him out through his club in handcuffs, thus ending the force’s tacit arrangement with Warren, and making Gene feel a bit better about himself. Ray Carling mentions later on in the series that Warren's arrest left a "power vacuum" which many criminals have been trying to fill, a situation that leads directly to the events in Series 1: Episode 8.