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Detective Chief Inspector Frank Burnside spent 16 years kicking down doors and dragging villains out of bed, growling “You’re nicked, son.”

The Bill’s toughest policeman wasn’t averse to throwing his weight around to get the scum off the streets of Sun Hill, but he always knew when to stop. Well, he didn’t want ‘em brown bread, did he?

But now shocking new evidence has emerged that DCI Burnside was guilty of a terrible killing that’s gone unreported for 14 years – namely snuffing out the career of the man who made him.

Actor Christopher Ellison eyeballs me across the table as the truth finally spills out. “Burnside killed me,” he says.

“He was such a strong character that he did for me for a very, very long time.

“TV dried up when The Bill and ­Burnside finished so I started doing a lot of theatre tours, because you have to make a living.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

“I kept going with little bits and pieces and touring theatre but I wasn’t called for auditions. They don’t come out and say you’re too typecast, it’s unspoken, they just don’t see you and that’s the end of it.

“It’s hard to deal with because you get to the stage where you think, ‘Maybe I should just pack all this in and get a job as a doorman.’ You don’t know what to do.”

Thankfully Chris didn’t give up on his acting career. And fans will be thrilled to hear that now, at the age of 68, he’s back on screen again, in a real killer of a role.

He plays an underworld torturer with a taste for old-fashioned hand drills in East End crime movie We Still Kill The Old Way. It’s a gory, gritty but entertaining story of four ageing gangsters who reunite the old firm to avenge the murder of their boss’s brother at the hands of a new gang.

Actor Ian Ogilvy – rather more portly now than in his days as TV’s The Saint – plays Richie, who returns from his new life in Spain to sort out the “little scrotes” who killed brother Charlie (Steven Berkoff).

The other heavies are played by Game of Thrones star James Cosmo and Football Factory actor-turned-boxer Tony Denham, with EastEnders’ Danny-Boy Hatchard as the upstart new gang chief and actress Lysette Anthony as Richie’s old flame

For Chris, a huge fan of gangster movies, it’s the dream comeback role.

“I was amazed when I heard Ian was playing the lead,” he says. “The Saint as an East End gangster? But he’s really great and the whole cast is fantastic. Everyone loves a gangster film, don’t they?

“I know people argue the idea of a ‘code of honour’ among criminals glamorises violence, but people still love crime stories. Books and films on the Mafia always sell, books on serial killers sell, horrible as it may be.

“And actually moving in that criminal underworld must be a nightmare.

“I met a lot of them, not the Krays, but other gangland figures like Charlie Foreman and Lenny McLean… (the bare-knuckle fighter and East End enforcer who went on the star in Guy Richie’s iconic movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels).

“I knew Lenny when he used to run the door at the ­Hippodrome. We called him Mr Teabag because he had so many perforations.”

(Image: Gareth Andrew Gatrell)

Despite his East End connections Chris is a West End boy and die-hard Chelsea fan. “All the action was up West in the late 50s early 60s,” he says.

“I was a sort of mod, used to hang around in the mohair suit and suede scooter jacket. There was a lot of standing around posing in those days.” After leaving school Chris went to art school in Camberwell, South London.

He says: “I always wanted to be an artist. I still paint, and my work does sell, but I still dream of being the new Jack Vettriano. To pay my way at art school I got a job as a stage manager at ­Richmond Theatre and then one day got offered my first acting role.

“I was lucky enough to get into a play starring a famous actor and an agent who came to see the show spotted me and took me on.

“I was with the RSC briefly and shared a dressing room with Ben Kingsley and an actor called John Wood.

“Trevor Nunn the director used to come in every night and go, ‘Ben, you were marvellous darling, John, you were ­marvellous, darling’ but he never said a word to me. I think he thought I was the cleaner. My first TV job was playing a young doctor the very last episode of Emergency Ward 10 in 1967.” But Chris, who also spent time in the merchant navy and working as a minicab driver, soon cornered the market in hardman roles – on both sides of the law.

(Image: Getty)

“My first gangster was in The Sweeney in 1975,” he says. “I’ve also done Minder, Dempsey and Makepeace, The ­Professionals, Widows.”

He was a minder in Paul ­McCartney’s 80s film Give My Regards to Broad Street and starred alongside Phil Collins in Great Train Robber biopic Buster.

In 1988 Chris became a permanent cast member in The Bill – having first appeared in 1984. He carried on until 2001, ending with his own spin-off series, Burnside. But it hasn’t all been scowling, swearing and punch-ups.

“I can do sensitive too, you know,” laughs Chris, who lives in Brighton with wife of 34 years, Anita, a model on ­shopping channel QVC.

They have a son, Louis, 32, a film director who makes music videos and has worked with Emeli Sande and Tinie Tempah, and daughter Francesca, 24 who has just presented them their first grandchild Amira.

“She’s 16 months now and gorgeous,” says Chris. “We dote on her.”

Chris proved that he certainly can “do sensitive” in 2004 when he played a transvestite garage owner called George in a radio play with actress Lynda ­Bellingham, who died in October.

He says: “Lynda was wonderful and I was so sad when she died. But the way she dealt with her illness… to go on TV and be interviewed when you are dying. Incredible courage.

“The play was called The Change. We did two series on Radio .

“I learned all about transvestites working on that. And I know about transsexuals too now my mate Frank Maloney is turning into a woman.

“I know him well, we go to boxing together and he has a house in Portugal near mine. He was always one of the chaps. But I thought something was going on when he went off radar.

“Then a mutual mate rang and said ‘There’s going to be something coming out in the paper about Frank’ and I thought ‘Oh, is it an affair, is he gay?’

“Then I saw the Sunday Mirror, with Frank as Kellie saying he was going to have a sex change. So I sent him a text saying, ‘Frank, now I understand why you’ve been so troubled lately.

“Anita and I are thinking of you, and if you want to talk we’re here.’

“He sent one back saying, ‘Thanks mate. That’s really kind. When we next meet, don’t try and pull me.’ I thought, ‘That’s still Frank then.’ And I joked back, ‘You know I don’t like short birds.’” In 2007 Chris moved from ITV to the Beeb for a short stint in EastEnders – as a love interest for Fat Pat. He was gutted the switch wasn’t permanent.

“He says: “I was brought in as Len Harker, who built rocking horses.

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“Pat, the lovely Pam St Clement, had got stranded at a petrol station and Len offers her a lift to Worthing to help her find the truth about her long-lost sister. I did four episodes, we got back to Albert Square, I dropped her off then ­disappeared. I didn’t even get to snog her. I’d love to be in EastEnders again though, who wouldn’t?”

It may be 13 years since Burnside vanished off our screens, last seen getting to grips with politically correct young PCs in the National Crime Squad, but he still gets recognised in the street.

“Yes, I get the odd ‘Slag’ shouted at me,” he says. “He was a big character and this face isn’t easy to disguise.

“We Still Kill director Jonathan ­Sothcott loved The Bill and Burnside and was a fan of mine. So I don’t resent Burnside. I wouldn’t be doing this film if it wasn’t for him. But he made it bloody difficult for a long time.”

We Still Kill the Old Way is out now in selected cinemas and released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 26.

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