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| “ | Then I'm in your hands. Completely. You hold all the cards. But I hope to God that my dismissal doesn't come before your decision to hand back those guns. And I say this for your sake, because if I were to be fired and it were your fault, I would do things that would shame the Devil. My fury is a thing to behold. On my last day in power, for example, I would see to it that you and your scum brothers have your heads stoved in with mallets and spades. And your sister too. That baby inside her would be of no consequence to me. The only one to be spared would be your little brother Finn. He would however be lifted as a juvenile and dumped into that part of the adult prison where men have the most appetite for boys like him. Oh, that would be a dark day indeed, Mr. Shelby, if my dismissal comes before your decision. | „ |
| ~ Campbell to Thomas Shelby. |
Chief Inspector Chester Campbell, later referred to as Major Campbell, is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Oswald Mosley) of the BBC crime series Peaky Blinders.
He is a ruthless government official obsessed with bringing down the Shelby family, leading him to commit heinous crimes in the process.
He was portrayed by Sam Neil, who also played Charles Bromley in Daybreakers, Dr. William Weir in Event Horizon, Damien Thorn in The Omen III, John MacArthur in And Then There Were None and Mr. McGregor in Peter Rabbit.
Biography[]
Much of Campbell's past is unknown with the exception of him cleaning up the underworld of Belfast at some point, during which he made himself a name for some incredibly brutal and ruthless methods. During this time he served with the father of Grace Burgess and developed a deep seated hatred for the IRA (who were later responsible for killing Grace's father). He did not serve during World War 1, giving him a reputation as somewhat of a coward.
Season One[]
When a number of high-value guns and ammunitions were mistakenly stolen by the Peaky Blinders gang, Winston Churchill sends Campbell to retrieve them, giving him command of the Birmingham police department during this mission. After arriving in Birmingham, Campbell makes a burning speech of the criminal activity he witnessed while condemning them for the high level of corruption. He then lets the supposed leader of the Peaky Blinders, Arthur Shelby, be abducted, beaten senseless and brought to him for interrogation about the guns. After concluding that Arthur knows nothing he asks him to help him in his investigation under the threat of eliminating the Blinders while also promising to help the family if they prove themselves useful allies. He later learns from Grace Burgess, who he has placed undercover as a barmaid in the Shelby-owned Garrison Pub, that Thomas Shelby is the real leader of the Peaky Blinders.
Campbell begins his war on the Blinders by ordering heavy-handed raids against neighbourhoods under their protection under the pretext of looking for communist agents. Thomas Shelby retaliates by arranging for portraits of King George to be publicly burnt in protest of the police action, humiliating Campbell and getting him reprimanded by Churchill for his overzealous tactics. Thomas then arranges a meeting with Campbell and tells him about his plans to usurp Billy Kimber as head of the Birmingham underworld, offering to tell Campbell where the guns are if he allows the takeover to proceed unimpeded. Campbell reluctantly agrees, if Thomas will give him information about Freddie Thorne, a communist agitator who is married to Thomas's sister Ada and is the father of her unborn son.
Thomas instead offers to hand over Stanley Chapman, a higher-ranking communist leader who is in the pay of the Bolshevists, in return for Ada and Freddie being able to leave Birmingham. Campbell agrees, but warns him that if he does not hand over the guns in time then his entire family will be killed except for his youngest brother Finn, who will be sent to prison and handed over to child molesters. He then goes ahead with arresting Stanley Chapman, but, planning to go back on his promise to let Freddie go, has him beaten until he gives up Freddie's location. Chapman does not have this information and is ultimately beaten for death. Soon after, Thomas allows Freddie to return to Birmingham for the birth of his child, but Grace informs Campbell, who has him arrested.
Campbell later sets up a sting operation with Thomas to apprehend Malacki Byrne, an IRA leader who wants to buy the guns from him, but orders the police to take their time intervening in the hope that Byrne will kill Thomas. Thomas survives and manages to kill Byrne, frustrating Campbell. Soon after Grace tells him she has found the guns, which are hidden in the grave of Danny Owen, a friend of Thomas whose death was faked earlier in the series. Sure enough, all but one of the machineguns are recovered from the grave. Grace then resigns, considering the investigation over, but turns down Campbell's advances on her; correctly guessing her refusal is based on her having feelings for Thomas, Campbell vows to get revenge. After failing to arrest him at the Garrison, he goes to a local brothel and sexually brutalizes a Chinese prostitute, leaving her bleeding, before calling Thomas and taunting him about Grace being a police informer. He then calls Billy Kimber and tips him off about Thomas's plan to usurp him before calling off all police from the area, hoping that Thomas will be killed, but ultimately only Kimber himself and Danny Owen are killed.
As Grace tries to leave Birmingham that night, Campbell follows her to the train station and holds her at gunpoint. She manages to shoot him in the leg with a gun in her handbag before escaping, leaving Campbell with a permanent limp.
Season Two[]
Two years later, Campbell is a major in the intelligence service and is attempting to suppress the Anti-Treaty IRA in the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence. In order to create a pretext for war against the IRA, he strongarms Irish dissidents into carrying out assassinations of IRA targets under promise of protection before allowing them to hang for the crimes. Sent back to Birmingham to arrange the assassination of Henry Russell, which will serve as the starting gun for war with the IRA, he decides to blackmail Thomas into doing it to get revenge on him. He arranges for his pro-treaty allies, Irene O'Donnell and Donal Henry, to bomb the Garrison and have Thomas forced into killing an Irishman named Eamonn Duggan, a fact which he then uses as leverage to blackmail him into further doing his bidding. However, Thomas informs him that Donal Henry is in fact an agent of the Anti-Treaty IRA, so Campbell is forced to order his death before Thomas will agree to kill Russell.
Campbell puts pressure on Thomas by having Arthur arrested for a murder he didn't commit, with help from crime lords Alfie Solomons and Darby Sabini, and also arrests his cousin Michael Gray for burning down the Marquis of Lorne Pub. Michael's mother Polly Gray goes to Campbell to beg for his release, but Campbell will only agree to sign his release form if she has sex with him. Polly reluctantly goes through with it and allows herself to be raped by Campbell in return for Michael's release, with Campbell making sure to taunt Michael by revealing what his mother did to get him out.
Meanwhile, Thomas realizes that Campbell is planning for him to be caught after he murders Russell so he can be killed out of the way in order to tie up loose ends. To forestall Campbell's plan, he bombs Russell's house so that he will be forced to change plans before offering to assassinate Russell at the Epsom Races on Derby Day. Campbell agrees to the new plan, before contracting the Red Right Hand, a death squad working for the government-sponsored Ulster Volunteer Force, to abduct and kill Thomas once Russell is dead.
On Derby Day, Campbell is at the Epsom Races to make sure that Russell is killed and Thomas is apprehended by the Red Right Hand in disguise as police. Once Russell is dead, Campbell goes to a phone booth to call Churchill and tell him the assassination is done. However, while he is on the phone, Polly corners him in the booth, smugly telling him that the police are not there to help him as they have gathered around the king to protect him from the assassin. Campbell taunts Polly about raping her, believing that she will be too afraid of him to do anything, only for Polly to shoot him in the abdomen. As Campbell dies, Polly tells him that he should have learned not to fuck with the Peaky Blinders. Meanwhile, Thomas is released by the Red Right Hand because Churchill had overruled Campbell's order to kill him so that he could be used as a proxy in future.
Personality[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Unlike most of the other villains in the show, Campbell is not directly based on a real person. However, he may be inspired by Charles Rafter, an Irish police inspector who crushed the real-life Peaky Blinders. The real Rafter was not nearly as corrupt as Campbell and dealt with the gangs by giving the police the authority to physically fight gang members and crush them with sheer numbers.
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 Villains
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The Shelbys Peaky Blinders Birmingham Police force Irish Republican Army Changretta Crime Family The Economic League The British Union of Fascists Others | ||