Headscratchers / Unforgotten

Several mysteries are deliberately raised but never answered. In Series 4:

• It's mentioned that none of the 5 probationers (the 4 suspects and Rob Fogerty) had any guests to their Passing Out at the end of the police training. But we never get any indication as to why Ram's family wouldn't have been willing to attend or invited by him? He seems on good terms with his brother and mother decades later.
  • (On a separate note, it's stretching credibility a bit that none of the 5 had made any friends they wanted to invite, but that's not really a focus of the series and given many of the 5 aren't from London it is perhaps more plausible.)
    • I think it was because his father didn't and stopped them from showing their approval, and perhaps they didn't approve due to his influence?

• Relatedly, Ram's father clearly has a deep-seated issue with him. Throughout the whole series, he never speaks to him or even acknowledges him at all. Ram is distressed by this and craves his approval. What is the issue?
  • Race, I think. I got the impression his father thought he was betraying his race/culture by (1) not working at the family business and (2) even worse, becoming a police officer.

• How did Dean Barton/Quinn get into a life of drug importation within months of leaving the police? We can be pretty confident he hasn't used any of his family contacts, given his mother seems not to have any clue about what he's been doing for the entire 30 years since he joined the police and cut contact with his family.
  • Deleted my previous comment because I just rewatched it and got a better idea what might've been happening. I think as far as the smuggling goes, Dean's family might be a red herring. I got the impression that Ram had been blackmailing him (or at least suggested they work together), because after the job we see onscreen, Dean tells Ram that it's the "last time" and he deposited the money into Ram's wife's bank account. So I think Ram and/or Dean were using their police contacts for the drug business.
    • The impression I got from watching was that Dean uses Ram, not the other way around. Ram isn't the person who initially calls Dean and gets him to agree to the job, and Ram seems to want Dean to reassure him that there won't be any more drug jobs to come rather than is trying to pressure him to do more. My read was that Dean has been paying Ram over the years to use police contacts to help the drug business, rather than Ram coercing or blackmailing him. In any case, we get no hint that Ram is the link between Dean and the world of drug importation - so who is? It isn't central to the plot, but given Dean has apparently been doing it for a long time but his family have no idea it is a headscratcher.