The Blame ending explained: Who is the killer in the ITV crime drama?

ITV's The Blame is another timely drama that reflects the shocking state of misogyny and violence against women and girls the country faces.

At a time Prime Minister Andy Burnham has addressed and promised to tackle the crisis, he referenced the case of Sarah Everard, a woman murdered by a police officer - she was killed by one of the people who she should've been able to trust.

Although fictional and based on the debut novel of the same name by Charlotte Langley, The Blame highlights real world institutional cover-ups, lies, moral compromise and misogyny in the police force.

By the series finale, the hunt for the killer of Sophie Masden showed the extent of corruption at Wakestead Police Station, as DI Emma Crane gets to the bottom of what happened to the teenager.

The shocking cover-ups surrounding her death not only showed just how dangerous it is to be a woman in the current climate, but also dealt viewers a shocking twist - the rapist and the killer in the show are two different people - but who are they?

The Blame ending explained

By the time the finale comes, DI Emma Crane knows someone working at the station lures women to their home to assault them using police records, and knows they're involved in Sophie's death - she just hasn't quite worked out who it is.

Events leading up to Sophie's death began when her skating coach made inappropriate sexual advances towards her.

After she's removed from the skating team for rejecting him, Sophie visits Wakestead Police Station searching for help, only to be treated badly by DC Joel Stevens and DC Douglas James during her interview.

Unnerved by the experience, the teenager starts her own investigation into the station, and finds that somebody working there in a position of power had used his standing to get women to come to his house, where he'd drug and sexually assault them.

The rapist also kept photos o his victims, and Sophie found out that the serial abuser was actually Head of Digital Forensics, Neil Shergill. He was perfectly placed to access details of vulnerable women who'd previously reported an assault but been ignored.

Having accessed their reports, he'd use a burner phone to message them pretending to another officer who wanted to take their case and get justice for them. Once the women visited his house and consumed spiked drinks, they wouldn't remember what happened the following day and he got away with rape for years.

When he got in touch with Sophie to pretend he wanted to get involved in her case, the already suspicious young girl didn't drink her spiked wine and found evidence around his home cementing her suspicions about him being a serial rapist.

However, Neil wasn't the person who eventually killed her, but worked closely with the person who did. Sadly, Sophie managed to escape Neil's clutches, but when she took her evidence to the person she thought she could trust, he also happened to be that very killer... but more on that later.

During the finale and one step behind, Emma puts herself in danger by visiting Neil to say she has the burner phone number of the rapist, asking him to use his skills to find out who it belongs to.

Knowing it's his phone and he's about to be unmasked, he offers her a spiked glass of wine. When she's about to pass out after unwittingly drinking it, he offers to ring the burner phone and of course, it rings inside his house.

Neil suggests this is it for Emma, and he'll be taking her life to cover up once again what he's been doing. Just when it looks like it's literal lights out for the detective, Tom arrives to save her. He kills Neil and Emma wakes up in hospital.

It turns out Emma had just about managed to message Tom for help before she passed out. While Emma later recovers at home, she's lovingly looked after by Tom, until she's ready to go back to work.

No sooner is she back at work, Emma is given a talking to by Lewis that gives her a sense of unease she can't shake off.

DC Lewis Brimah warns her that Tom might not be the person she thinks he is, suggesting he has evidence that "nobody is a good guy all of the time" to gently break it to her that her lover isn't what he seems.

Kapil Manek later suggests Tom is behind him having to resign after having him set up, and Emma's mounting discomfort is hard to ignore.

Who is the killer?

We've established that Neil wasn't the killer, and Emma's instincts and mounting evidence about the killer's identity are all pointing towards Tom.

And she is right, it turns out that Tom Radley killed Sophie. While investigating Marissa Andrei's sexual assault, Tom had seen CCTV footage proving Neil Shergill was the culprit.

Instead of reporting it, he used the evidence to keep Neil in his pocket - this was another in a long line of colleagues Tom manipulated and walked over to aid his own career progression.

It transpires that Kapil was telling the truth - Tom asked Neil to frame Kapil for leaking the identity of a confidential informant because he wanted a promotion and it looked like Kapil might get it.

Tom turned killer when Sophie had taken him evidence about Neil being a serial rapist. Believing he might be one of the only officers she could trust, Tom murdered Sophie because he knew he'd be implicated in covering for Neil if everyone found out about him.

He murdered the young girl and got Neil to help him cover it up. He later uncovered the extent of Neil's crimes but still didn't report him because he was in too deep.

Tom tries to explain to Emma that he'd also found out that Neil killed Amber Dodds, not Stanley Vogel, the man Emma put behind bars for the crime.

He says he was trying to protect her from her big error being uncovered, and the fact she'd been so sure it was Stanley she'd planted evidence to convict him.

But it's not enough, he's done too much for Emma to to have any shred of forgiveness for what he's done. With both of them in tears, Emma arrests Tom and calls it in.

In the closing moments of The Blame, Lewis finds evidence that DI Crane is also corrupt and looks at the evidence in horror. Not knowing what he'll do with this information might just be opening the door for season 2 of the series.

All episodes of The Blame are available to stream on ITVX.