Festive Crackdown: Police Target Drive-Thru to Catch Morning After Drivers
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With Christmas party season now in full swing, Merseyside Police officers are continuing their proactive Operation Limit work, with 105 arrests for drug and drink driving made in the first week alone.
Operation Limit is a national campaign which intensifies the focus on drug and drink driving for police forces across the festive period.
With seasonal celebrations well underway, officers are reminding drivers that the risk doesn’t end when the night does. Any drivers stopped and found to be over the limit for alcohol, or who tests positive for illegal drugs will face the same consequences at 8.00 a.m. as they would 1:00 a.m.
Throughout December and into the New Year, Merseyside Police will be carrying out increased patrols across the region, with roadside breath tests and drug wipes taking place at all times of day, including early mornings and commuter routes. Officers will be visible around venues, town centres and collision hotspots, and unmarked patrols will also be deployed to target high-risk behaviours.
Gavin Dixon, Merseyside Police Roads Policing Inspector, said: “We hope our presence near places like fast food drive throughs will make people think about their morning-after behaviour.
“Alcohol, and some drugs, stay in your system far longer than people think. You can’t ‘sleep it off’. You might feel better after a coffee and a shower, but it’s actually made zero difference to the amount of alcohol in your system. So people need to be planning ahead. Get a taxi, get a takeaway, arrange a lift: the only safe choice is not to drive.
“We have no sympathy for people who choose to ignore this advice and get behind the wheel unfit to drive. They’re choosing to put the lives of innocent people at risk. Imagine deciding that having a bacon butty was more important than the life of someone’s son or daughter. It’s unbelievably selfish.
“Everyone deserves to be able to use the roads safely. We’ll keep testing at all times of the day and night, in every area of Merseyside, to make that happen.”
Causing death by dangerous or careless driving while under the influence carries severe penalties, including life imprisonment. A conviction can also have lasting effects on insurance costs, employment and even international travel. Professional drivers and those in regulated roles are particularly at risk of losing their livelihoods.
Merseyside Police is asking the public to play their part. If you suspect someone is currently driving under the influence, call 999 immediately. For non-urgent information, call 101 or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Businesses and venues can also help by promoting #OpLimit messages, displaying posters near exits and taxi ranks, and encouraging staff and customers to plan a safe ride home.
Netflix’s Run Away ending explained: James Nesbitt and Ruth Jones reveal they didn’t predict [spoiler]
There were plenty of twists in the Run Away finale, but who was the killer?
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*Warning: This article contains spoilers for the final episode of Run Away.*
Another New Year, another Harlan Coben thriller on Netflix.
Run Away is upon us and, like Missing You and Fool Me Once before it, the new series premiered on the streamer on New Year’s Day.
The show follows Simon Greene (James Nesbitt), a devoted father who sets out on a mission to find his teenage daughter, Paige (Ellie de Lange), after she mysteriously disappears.
But his search soon takes him down an increasingly dark path, as he stumbles upon secrets which could destroy his family for good, and leads to a dramatic end.
The penultimate chapter saw Simon come face to face with murderous cult member Dee-Dee (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) and Ash (Jon Pointing) in a perilous shootout.
When the dust settled, Ash was dead, Simon was shot and Dee-Dee had been thrown off of a balcony by a fellow Shining Haven member, with Paige’s involvement and whereabouts remaining a mystery.
Want to know what happened next? Read on for a recap of the series’ ending, as well as insight from Nesbitt and Gavin & Stacey icon Ruth Jones, who plays private investigator Elena Ravenscroft in the Run Away cast.
Run Away ending explained: What happens to Simon?
As he’s being whisked away to hospital, Simon tells paramedics to pass on a message to Detective Fagbenle (Alfred Enoch) that he’s got a lead on Paige. We then see Fagbenle and his team raid Shining Haven where members of The Beacon of the Shining Truth reside. Unfortunately, they don’t find Paige but they do find the cult leader, Casper Vartage.
The centre of several abuse allegations and a suspect in multiple disappearances, Fagbenle is keen to nab him but they don’t find him initially. Fagbenle eventually finds him hiding out, about to take a deadly pill so as to avoid going to prison for his crimes. Luckily, Fagbenle tackles him just in time and arrests him.
Going to visit Simon in hospital, Fagbenle has connected the dots of this complicated web of people. He tells Simon that Aaron was actually born in the cult, as were his multiple half-brothers who were all adopted illegally and fathered by Vartage. Vartage deemed them all to be un-divine and so, hired a hitman to kill them all, knowing that the brothers had found one another. As we knew, Vartage had hired Dee-Dee and Ash to do the job.
As for the mysterious woman who effectively saved Simon’s life from Dee-Dee by killing her, Fagbenle urges Simon to tell him if he sees her again. Simon promises to do so but in a flashback, we see that she actually came to visit Simon the evening prior.
Known as Mother Adiona, she tells Simon about her extensive time in The Shining Truth. She says that when she had a son, she was told that he would be the next leader but when she had another, she was told by Vartage that she’d have to give him up. The year before, she tried finding him on a DNA website and was successful, tracking him down and meeting him. However, she was made aware of the plan to kill all of the younger brothers and couldn’t just stand by. She thanks Simon for not telling the police that she actually killed Dee-Dee but doesn’t have good news for him as she says she doesn’t know if Paige is actually at Shining Haven or not.
As the months go by in a montage, we see Simon restored back to full health and determined to track down Paige, going round the town with her picture and talking to strangers. In that time, we see that Fagbenle has unfortunately found Elena buried in the woods and informs Lou (Annette Badland) and Simon of the sad news. One day when Simon goes to visit Ingrid (Minnie Driver) in hospital though, he spots a familiar figure: Paige.
What happened to Paige and was she found?
It turns out that Paige was in rehab this whole time and with no access to her phone or the internet, she was none the wiser about what had unfolded until her counsellor had informed her about Ingrid. Once she heard the news, she rushed straight to the hospital to see her mother but having been sober for one month, explains to Simon that she finds the hospital setting triggering for a relapse.
Paige later says that she did find Aaron dead at their flat and didn’t know what to do because it looked as if she may have been responsible. Paige said she hid out and then went to rehab but when Simon asks how she even came to know about where to go, she tells him that she’d actually been there before. She was doing well until Aaron had broken into the rehab facility and shot her up with drugs in her sleep, which made her leave rehab with him the following day.
Paige eventually admits that Ingrid had taken her to rehab, with Ingrid telling Paige that she’d actually been there herself when she was younger. Simon was none the wiser to any of this but insists on driving Paige back the following day.
Who was the killer in Run Away?
But when they pull up, Simon confronts Paige about some holes in her story about the night that Aaron was killed. It was clear that Dee-Dee and Ash were visiting the estate for the first time when they attacked Simon and Cornelius, but that wouldn’t have been the case if they’d been there to kill Aaron some time before. Paige admits that she couldn’t get clean if Aaron was still around and so, killed him.
Simon doesn’t believe her so asks if Paige went to Ingrid after Aaron had beaten her up. Ingrid told Paige to go back to rehab but when she’d gone back to the flat, she’d found Aaron dead. After sleeping for days, she’d reached a realisation that it was actually Ingrid that killed Aaron in a bid to protect Paige. Simon admits that they won’t tell Ingrid they know and that the secret will stay with the both of them.
Later, we see that Ingrid awakes from her coma and all is well within the Greene family once again. Simon attends Elena’s funeral as we see that she is buried next to her husband Joel and after her time at rehab, Paige returns home after being collected by Simon.
As Ingrid and Simon take a walk in the park one day, Simon confronts Ingrid about Aaron’s murder. Ingrid said she’d planned on killing Aaron after Paige told her that he’d beaten her up. Having seen a news story about a gang killing, Ingrid decided to make the murder look as though it was connected to that. Simon finds it hard to understand how Ingrid could’ve kept Paige being in rehab a secret, given the fact that he was out for months trying to look for her.
Ingrid also admits that nothing happened with her co-worker Jay and he was simply her alibi for the night. Jay was worried about her so followed her that evening, but Ingrid managed to lose him and go to kill Aaron. When she was leaving the flat though, she saw local drug dealer Luther, who was the person that fatally shot her. It’s now clear that he shot her because when he saw her in the drug den that evening, he thought she was there to kill them too.
Ingrid explains that she didn’t tell Simon in a bid to protect him so that if she was arrested, Simon would still be there to look after their children. They vow to not keep anymore secrets and all seems well. That is, until Simon has a hunch and goes to Ingrid’s sister Yvonne’s home looking for old pictures. Simon recalls a Christmas where Ingrid got mad after Yvonne started showing pictures of a young Ingrid from her modelling days. He finds the pictures in question and one drops out, which makes Simon stop in his tracks.
What does Simon find out about Ingrid?
Later that day, Simon returns home to find his family preparing lunch and enjoying each other’s company. He finds Paige outside in the garden playing her guitar and goes to have a chat with her, enquiring about her feelings towards Aaron.
Simon tells Paige that he always found it odd that in Paige and Aaron’s flat, there were two single mattresses on either side of the room as opposed to a double that they shared. Simon then goes on to tell Paige that he went to visit Doug Mulzer to confront him about what he did to Paige. But Doug told Simon that he was attacked himself by a man in a balaclava, with Paige admitting that it was Aaron. However, Doug mentioned to Simon that when Aaron was beating him, he screamed: “No one hurts my sister.”
Paige was on a genealogy site too as part of her university project and found out that Aaron was her half-brother, meaning that Ingrid was their mother. Simon retrieves the picture he took from Yvonne’s house and gives it to Paige. That’s when we see that it’s of a younger Ingrid who’s pregnant and standing in front of a symbol for The Shining Truth.
Paige says that Ingrid told her that she’d never gone modelling abroad when she was younger and was actually part of this cult. She got pregnant and had a baby but thought it was stillborn. She eventually escaped and went to rehab, the same one that she took Paige to. Paige explains the rollercoaster of emotions that came with finding out about Aaron being her brother, explaining that Aaron was obviously the one to introduce her to drugs.
Paige says that she did confront Ingrid about having a child before her, but Ingrid explained that she thought he was stillborn. In the throws of her addiction, Paige didn’t believe her and obviously ran away. Now, she’s having to reckon with the fact that she not only drove her mother to kill Aaron, but that Aaron was her own son.
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Paige tells Simon that they can never tell Ingrid about who Aaron actually was, saying that it will destroy her. Simon doesn’t want to keep anymore secrets but seems to understand that it really would have bad consequences if he told Ingrid who Aaron was to her.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com about that series of twists in the finale, Harlan Coben said: “This one has more twists and turns than any. Episode 8 especially – you’ll think you have it solved once, twice and that last minute, you’ll have one more. It has to be emotional, it had to be a twist that would not only make you gasp out loud but hits you in the heart a little bit.”
Similarly, in regards to what transpired in the finale, Jones said: “I didn’t actually [see what was coming].”
Nesbitt said: “[Harlan Coben’s] very good at those twists. In a sense because he’s done so many of them, you’d think you would get it. But you’re still so distracted. You’re so involved in it, you’re just watching where it goes and it just takes different routes all the time. When you finally get to the end, I think it’s quite the shock.”
With Run Away marking his third role in a Harlan Coben series, when asked how this finale compared to his others, Nesbitt said: “I think it was pretty shocking. I mean, Stay Close was pretty shocking I have to say. In a sense, you’re just playing the role, you’re not really thinking about how to get there, you’re just getting there slowly and then before you know it, it’s done. But yeah, obviously you have to play just what it given to you. And what is often given to you is traumatic and shocking.
The Ending of Harlan Coben’s ‘Run Away’ on Netflix Explained
By Dustin Rowles | TV | January 2, 2026
Header Image Source: Netflix
Over the holiday break each year, I take a break from television for a couple of weeks and try to catch up on as many movies as I can from the previous year. I watched 22 this break! This one was my favorite. But as has become an annual tradition, New Year’s Day brings a new Harlan Coben series, signaling to me that it’s time to return my attention to episodic television instead of films.
I’m a completist, and having outlined the plots of the omnipresent Harlan Coben’s previous Netflix hit series — Missing You, The Stranger, Stay Close, Gone for Good, Fool Me Once, and The Woods — I’m here again to bring you the goods on 2026’s Harlan Coben New Year’s series, Run Away.
This one, honestly, may be the most entertaining Coben series since the OG, Michael C. Hall’s Safe. The plot is still bonkers, but there’s less middle-episode slog, and James Nesbitt — a Coben regular — emotes more than is typical for these muted productions, although the usually expressive Minnie Driver is oddly restrained. Of course, no Coben series would be complete if the two women who could have solved the entire mystery in five minutes weren’t fridged for almost the entirety of the series. Why cast Minnie Driver only to relegate her to a coma patient in a hospital bed?
The plot is ridiculous, but it mostly holds together. Here we go. Spoilers
James Nesbitt is Simon Greene, a wealthy man whose daughter, Paige (Ellie de Lange), has a drug problem and has gone missing. He’s tipped off to her whereabouts, but when he encounters her busking in a park, her supposed boyfriend, Aaron Corval (Thomas Flynn), prevents Simon from reaching her. Simon responds by beating the hell out of Aaron. Someone captures the incident and uploads it to YouTube, framing it as a rich guy assaulting a homeless person.
A day or so later, Aaron Corval is murdered. Paige is still missing. Because Simon was seen attacking Aaron, he becomes the prime suspect in the murder, which is investigated by Detectives Isaac Fagbenle (Alfred Enoch) and Ruby Todd (Amy Gledhill), who also happen to be sleeping together, a detail that barely figures into the plot. Since the police are focused on him, Simon takes it upon himself to investigate his daughter’s disappearance. He recruits his wife, Ingrid (Minnie Driver), and together they track down the dealer who sold Paige drugs. One of the dealer’s henchmen ultimately shoots Ingrid, leaving her in a coma for the next six episodes.
If Paige weren’t missing and Ingrid weren’t in a coma, the series would have been two episodes long.
Meanwhile, private investigator Elena Ravenscroft (Ruth Jones) is looking into the disappearance of another man. She eventually connects that case to Paige, and she and Simon begin working together. Elsewhere, two people, Dee Dee (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) and Ash (Jon Pointing), are being paid to murder seemingly random individuals. Dee Dee and Ash grew up in the same foster home.
I’ll save you four or five episodes and cut to the chase: Dee Dee and Ash are working for a generic cult called The Shining Truth. The cult’s leader, Caspar Vartage, is dying. Over the decades, Caspar impregnated multiple women, took their babies away, told the mothers the children were stillborn, and arranged for the infants to be adopted through the same agency. To ensure that none of his sons inherit the cult and its money, Caspar hires Dee Dee and Ash to murder them before they can emerge and stake a claim.
When Elena gets close to uncovering the truth, Dee Dee and Ash kill her, too, which is a huge bummer. For those keeping count, of the three women leads, two are fridged and one is murdered. Elena’s investigative work nevertheless helps the police dismantle the cult and bring down Caspar. Meanwhile, Ash and Dee Dee are killed in a shootout with Simon and Cornelius (Lucian Msamati), a kind man who mostly exists to protect the main characters. He shoots Ash before Ash can kill Simon, and he also shoots the man who shot Ingrid.
So what’s the big secret connecting Paige, her supposed boyfriend Aaron Corval, and Paige’s mom, Ingrid? Here’s what happened: Paige was trying to get clean and entered rehab. When she returned, Aaron got her hooked on drugs again and beat her. Paige confided in Ingrid, and it was a furious Ingrid who killed Aaron (Cornelius, the nice man, also got rid of the murder weapon). Coincidentally, Aaron was one of Caspar’s sons. After Aaron’s death, Paige returned to rehab, which is why she was missing.
The police ultimately assume that Dee Dee and Ash killed Aaron, so Ingrid gets away with literal murder. When Paige returns from rehab, and Ingrid wakes from her coma, they explain everything to Simon.
The final bombshell twist is this: What Ingrid didn’t know when she killed Aaron was that he wasn’t Paige’s boyfriend. He was her half-brother. Decades earlier, Ingrid herself had been part of The Shining Truth cult. Caspar impregnated her and later told her that her baby was stillborn. In the end, Simon and Paige agree never to tell Ingrid that she murdered her own son to protect her daughter.
The end.
There is, however, one B-storyline worth mentioning. While Elena is investigating the connection between all these missing and murdered men, she’s also trying to learn more about her late husband’s secret daughter, whom she didn’t find out about until after his death. She assumes that her loving husband had had a secret affair. She learns, however, that he never cheated. He donated his sperm to a woman who wanted to have a baby, but he never told Elena because he thought it would break her heart, since Elena couldn’t have children. Elena was supposed to have dinner with the secret daughter the night that Ash and Dee Dee murdered her, and that storyline fizzles out.
