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Waterloo Road confirms unexpected child death – and star was kept in the dark

A promotional image of the cast of Waterloo Road, led by new star Jason Manford
Waterloo Road just aired a huge shock death (Picture: BBC/NYNEX/Wall To Wall/Warner Brothers TV Production Services Ltd)

Waterloo Road’s sudden death in the fifth episode of series 14 came not only as a shock to viewers this evening, but to actor Nathan Wood as well.

Brian ‘Boz’ Osbourne was suddenly killed off during tonight’s instalment of the BBC school drama, as Billy Savage (Olly Rhodes) fought back against his bullies.

Boz and Schuey Weaver (Zak Sutcliffe) spent weeks tormenting Billy, until he finally snapped.

In shocking scenes, Billy tied a piece of chord across the tow path, knowing that Schuey would be coming to find him that night.

However, it was Boz who turned up, and when his bike wheel hit the chord, he was sent flying over the handle bars, with the impact of the pavement killing him instantly.

Terrified, Billy called in headteacher and dad Steve Savage (Jason Manford) for help, and together they decided to cover up the crime in the hopes that everything would go back to normal – though Billy is set to struggle in the wake of the traumatic event.

‘Billy’s at a complete loss. He doesn’t quite understand why they’ve actually done what they’ve done,’ Actor Olly Rhodes explained.

Billy looking horrified in Waterloo Road
Billy accidentally killed Boz (Picture: Warner Brothers TV Production Services Ltd)
Boz and Schuey looking smug in Waterloo Road
Boz and Schuey had been bullying Billy (Picture: BBC/Wall to Wall/Warner Brothers TV Production Services Ltd/Dan Ollerhead)

‘Ultimately he’s started to believe that it probably would have been best to call the police first and go through the proper channels, as it were. But ultimately his dad is the only sort of figure in his life that he can trust and lean on for any kind of support, so whatever his dad says goes and that’s just what he has to put up with, I guess.’

The unexpected death came as a huge shock to viewers – but perhaps not as much as it did to Nathan, who played Boz!

‘I didn’t know at first!’ Nathan told us.

‘There was a moment we were all sat in the green room and Nathan came in,’ Jason Manford explained. ‘Me and Olly knew the storyline and Nathan was like, “They’ve only given me a couple of episodes at the moment but I hope they’re going to give me more.” We were just sat there like, “Yeah, yeah, good luck with that.”

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‘It was a bit of an awkward intro, wasn’t it?’ He laughed. ‘And we’d all signed NDA’s and stuff so we weren’t even allowed to tell him what the storyline was.’

With Boz’s death now covered up, will Steve and Billy get away with it?

‘He’s 100% convinced that he’s covered all the bases,’ Jason said. ‘He’s that sort of bloke that, he does think outside of the box and he does think “I’m cleverer than this copper, cleverer than the police.” Which, as you know from any crime show, is the first mistake the perpetrator makes…’

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