List of Coronation Street characters (1999)

The following is a list of characters that first appeared in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street in 1999, by order of first appearance.

Jerry Hopkins

Jerry Hopkins was the abusive husband of Rebecca. He made his first appearance on 17 December 1999 and made his last appearance on 28 April 2000. He was portrayed by Ken Christiansen.

In December 1999, Martin Platt (Sean Wilson) befriended Rebecca as Jerry started domestically abusing her when he refused to have children with her. Even Martin and his then wife, Gail, met Jerry at a Christmas party and were appalled of how he treated her. Jerry's abuse resulted in Rebecca to sleep with Martin, and, to save his marriage to Gail, Martin refused to speak to Rebecca, even after she called him to deal with Jerry as they were getting into a fight. Rebecca then came into work with a black eye, making Martin feel guilty that he wasn't there for her. On New Year's Day, Jerry found Martin and Rebecca talking to each other and accused them of having an affair, but Martin sent him away with a flea in his ear.

In January 2000, Jerry discovered that Martin and Rebecca were indeed have an affair, and he informed Gail this, but due to his abusive nature, Gail thought Jerry was talking rubbish and sent him off as well.

In April 2000, Rebecca presented Jerry with divorce papers, and this caused Jerry to angrily turn up at her flat and blame Martin for his divorce. Martin, however, put Jerry in his place, and Jerry vowed for revenge, although his revenge on Martin never carried out.

Jessica Lundy

Rev. Jessica Lundy was a Catholic pastor. She made her first appearance on 31 March 1999 and made her last appearance on 4 August 2000. She was portrayed by Olwen May.

In March 1999, Jessica first appeared as the pastor to wed Hayley Patterson (Julie Hesmondhalgh) and Roy Cropper (David Neilson). She wedded the couple in April, although they did not marry legally since Hayley was transsexual, but nevertheless changed her last name to Cropper.

In August 2000, Jessica next made an appearance as the christening pastor for Bethany Platt. Hayley and Bethany's mother Sarah's (Tina O'Brien) best mate, Candice Stowe (Nikki Sanderson), were godmothers and Roy was godfather. Sarah's younger half brother, David (Jack P. Shepherd), was intending to be godfather but Roy stepped in when he jealously did a runner from the church. The christening party was also ruined when Candice's mother, Marion (Paula Simms), turned up at 8 Coronation Street to collect her daughter since she had secretly gone off to the christening after she banned her from attending; she pointed a finger at Sarah and called her a "little tramp" and even insulted Jessica, but she told back that she wished her mouth were as small as her mind before Marion dragged her daughter off and David was brought home in a police cab as he was caught shoplifting.

Nita Desai

Nita Desai arrives in January as a new assistant at the Corner Shop, which her family later take over. Nita was played by Rebecca Sarker.

Ravi Desai

Ravi Desai took over the running of the Corner Shop on Coronation Street in 1999. Played by actor Saeed Jaffrey, Ravi left Weatherfield due to family issues later in the year and sold his empire of convenience stores in the area to a cousin of Vikram's (Chris Bisson), Dev Alahan (Jimmi Harkishin).

Darren Dobbs

Darren Dobbs is the father of Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall) who appears on 25 January 1999 to take his wife Jackie (Margi Clarke) home to Liverpool.

Vikram Desai

Vikram Desai was played by Chris Bisson. Vikram is Dev Alahan's (Jimmi Harkishin) cousin and he used to own the shop with Dev and worked with Sunita (Shobna Gulati). During his time in Coronation Street he dated Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson) and Maria Sutherland (Samia Ghadie). In 2000 he briefly dated Candice Stowe (Nikki Sanderson) but he later learns that she is under the age of consent. In 2002 he was forced to smuggle drugs in from abroad then again, but this time he asked Steve (Simon Gregson) and Karen McDonald (Suranne Jones) if they wanted a free holiday and they accepted. When they came back Steve discovered powder at the bottom of his suitcase and inside was drugs, and found out that Vikram had done it. Karen was horrified as well as Steve and he dumped the drugs in the canal and told Vikram to leave Weatherfield for good, and if he comes back Steve said he will kill him. He now lives in India.

Vikram was mentioned when Sunita's aunts came to stay in 2010, after Dev said that they were even worse than him.

Tom Ferguson

Tom Ferguson, played by actor Tom Wisdom, is the son of Duggie Ferguson, who arrives later in the year. Tom is a hairdresser, and worked at Audrey Roberts' salon until he quit in January 2000 and left Weatherfield to get away from his father.

Boris Weaver

Boris Weaver was a butcher who worked for Ashley Peacock at Elliott and Sons butchers. Boris appeared for the first time in 1999 and appeared recurrently and made his last appearance at Christmas 2004, at Ashley's wedding to Claire Casey. From then on, Boris was still referred to and looked after the shop when Ashley was away. In later years both Kirk Sutherland and Graeme Proctor successively worked for Ashley at the shop, it is assumed that Boris was no longer an employee there.

Danny Hargreaves

Danny Hargreaves is played by Richard Standing between 1999 and 2001. A market trader, Danny meets Sally Webster at work and begins a relationship with her. Danny and Sally fell in love and got engaged, but he jilted her on their wedding day after discovering that Sally had had a one-night stand with ex-husband Kevin.

Beryl Peacock

Beryl Hayden Peacock (née Elliott) is the sister of Fred Elliott. Beryl and her husband Sam had raised Fred's son, Ashley, as their own. Beryl first appeared when Ashley asked her for the truth about his parentage and she was forced to tell Ashley that she was actually his Aunt, not his mother. Beryl made her most recent appearance at Fred's funeral in October 2006.

Beryl did not attend Ashley's funeral when he died in December 2010.

Belinda Peach

Belinda Peach appears briefly at the Freshco's Summer Ball where she tries to woo Ashley Peacock. Ashley is amused by Fred Elliott's attempts to pair him with Belinda, despite him attending with Maxine Heavey. Maxine gets annoyed by Belinda's overly friendly manner and pushes her in the direction of Curly Watts.

Doreen Heavey

Doreen Heavey (née Outhwaite) is the mother of Maxine Peacock, played by actress Prunella Gee, who had three spells on the Street between 1999 and 2004; the third of these covering the period of her daughter's death at the hands of Richard Hillman in early 2003 after which she moved back in with her ex-husband Derek, Maxine's father, in order to give their relationship another go. Doreen was last seen in November 2004 when she, Ashley and her grandson Joshua went to lay flowers on Maxine's grave on what would have been her 29th birthday. She told Ashley that she liked his new fiancee Claire Casey and gave him her blessing to marry Claire.

Vinny Sorrell

Vinny Sorrell, played by James Gaddas appeared for a period of 15 months between 1999 and 2000. He has an on/off relationship with Natalie Barnes throughout, and works alongside her at the Rovers Return as a barman and cellarman. Vinny departs Weatherfield in November 2000 after his affair with Natalie's sister Debs Brownlow is revealed. Vinny moves to Southampton with Debs where she gets a new job. Unbeknownst to Vinny, Natalie is pregnant with his child and she gives birth to their daughter, Laura, off-screen in 2001.

Daniel Cross

Daniel Cross, played by George Sorby, was a 4-year-old schoolboy who was lost on Coronation Street after wandering away from the school playground. He was later taken home by Ken Barlow (William Roache).

Kathleen Gutteridge

Kathleen Gutteridge is the biological mother of Ashley Peacock. She is first mentioned when Fred Elliott reveals that he is Ashley's father. Fred tries to talk him out of finding her as it would hurt Ashley's adoptive mother (in reality his aunt), Beryl Peacock. Kathleen had abandoned Ashley when he was born and Fred gave him to his sister, Beryl and her husband Sam.

When Kathleen and Ashley eventually meet, Ashley is very bitter towards her. However, they are able to eventually reconcile and Kathleen attends Ashley's wedding to Maxine Heavey.

Fred tries to woo Kathleen again, but she turns him down.

Kathleen did not attend Ashley's funeral when he died in December 2010.

Gwen Davies

Gwen Loveday (née Davies) is a machinist at Underworld, played by Annie Hulley for a period of eight months from 1999 to 2000.

Duggie Ferguson

Douglas William "Duggie" Ferguson was played by John Bowe.

An ex-rugby league player who went into the printing business, he first came to Coronation Street after tracking down his son Tom, who worked as a hairdresser for Audrey Roberts. Tom blamed his father for his mother's death and did not want him around. Duggie was hurt by this and bought into a local development on Victoria Street to be close to Tom but there was no reconciliation and Tom left Weatherfield and moved to Leeds.

In late 1999 to early 2000, Duggie turned property developer and employed Steve McDonald as foreman for the building of his Victoria Street complex - those who rented the commercial units included Sally Webster and Danny Hargreaves, butcher Fred Elliott, and Vikram Desai and Steve McDonald, who started up their own mini-cab firm.

Early in 2000 Duggie started a relationship with Debs Brownlow, sister of Rovers landlady Natalie Barnes. Debs came to Weatherfield to be near her sister after many years working on a cruise ship as a hairdresser. Debs helped Duggie overcome his emotional block concerning women and the couple were happy until Duggie started to develop another property and tried to forcibly evict tenants including Toyah Battersby and Phil Simmons. Both felt that they had been treated badly, especially when Duggie employed Vinny Sorrell to evict Simmons from his home. Simmons went to the press and the adverse report caused Duggie's financial downfall, forcing him to sell the home that he had shared with wife Laura. Dev Alahan bought Duggie's home for a quick sale before putting it back on the market and making a tidy profit. Duggie was forced to move in with Debs Brownlow, hoping to use it as an office for his business contacts but Debs had a fling with Vinny - her sister's lover and Duggie's employee. Duggie was furious when Vinny and Debs left town with £400 of rent money.

In December 2000, Natalie decided to sell and the Rovers came under threat by a chain who planned to turn it into a 'fun pub' named the Boozy Newt. Duggie stepped in to help the Rovers avoid this but could not buy the place alone so Fred Elliott and Mike Baldwin invested in the Rovers with Duggie. Neither of the trio wanted to run the place so they employed Liz McDonald to run it. Liz moved into the Rovers with resident barmaid Toyah Battersby but her reign as manager was short as, after numerous disagreements with the trio, and husband Jim being transferred to a prison in Leicester, she quit and left Weatherfield. Mike's new wife, Linda, took the helm of the Rovers, but her heart was not in it and Duggie persuaded his partners to sell their shares to a 'mysterious owner' - Duggie snapped up their shares and became sole owner of the Rovers.

At the end of 2001, the social club at Duggie's beloved Weatherfield Rugby League club came up for sale. Looking to raise money quickly, Duggie auctioned the Rovers - to Fred Elliott - for £76,000, only to find he had been gazumped for the Rugby Club by fellow ex-professional Marty Flynn. With time and money on his hands, he went into partnership with Richard Hillman, converting an old house - 'Oakhill' into luxury flats. Duggie was determined to cut corners, preferably without Richard's knowledge but Richard suspected this and confronted Duggie at the development. Hoist by his own petard, Duggie leant over a banister which collapsed and he plunged two floors. The fall did not kill him outright but Richard chose to rifle through Duggie's pockets, take his keys and raid his safe, taking the cash from the sale of the Rovers, rather than summon help. Duggie was later found to have crawled to another room and died. His son, Tom, was ostensibly too busy cutting hair on a cruise ship to attend his father's funeral.

Candice Stowe

Candice Marie Islandos (née Stowe) was played by Nikki Sanderson. Candice first appeared in 1999 as Sarah-Louise Platt's best friend from school. She attempted to get Sarah to smoke. She and Sarah were both thirteen at the time. Candice was one of the first people Sarah told of her pregnancy. While many of Sarah's friends turned against Sarah, Candice stuck by her throughout the pregnancy and birth of her daughter Bethany Platt in 2000. Candice proved to be a good friend in times of crisis during Sarah's life, for example she and Todd Grimshaw were instrumental in Sarah being able to evade the clutches of her paedophile kidnapper Gary in July 2001. As they grew up Candice, Sarah and their friend Maria Sutherland began to turn the heads of The Street's men and became increasingly popular with male viewers of the show.

Dev Alahan

Devendra "Dev" Alahan is a fictional character from the long-running soap opera, Coronation Street. He is played by Jimmi Harkishin, and made his first appearance on 10 November 1999. He is the ex-husband of Sunita Alahan (Shobna Gulati), and father to Amber Kalirai (Nikki Patel), Aadi Alahan (Zennon Ditchett) and Asha Alahan (Tanisha Gorey), although Amber is not Sunita's daughter. Dev has had many affairs, including ones with Deirdre (Anne Kirkbride) and Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford), and a friendship with Stella Price (Michelle Collins), whom Dev later develops feelings for. In 2012, Dev discovered that Sunita had been having an affair with Karl Munro (John Michie), and attacked him, though Karl's partner Stella slapped Sunita. In March 2013, Sunita was trapped in a fire at The Rovers Return, which was started by Karl. Sunita would've made it, but Karl pulled out her oxygen tube and she suffered a cardiac arrest and died.

Rebecca Hopkins

Rebecca Hopkins was a nurse, played by actress Jill Halfpenny, who had an affair with Martin Platt. Rebecca's husband Jerry was violent towards her, and after Martin helped Rebecca to get away from him, the pair fell in love and Martin was prepared to leave his wife Gail for Rebecca. However, when Gail's daughter Sarah-Louise fell pregnant aged just thirteen, Martin felt compelled to stay with his family and ended the affair. Rebecca left Weatherfield a few months later and moved to Dubai where she had been offered a new job, but the damage to the Platt's marriage was already done and Gail and Martin separated later that year. In December 2000, Martin spotted Rebecca whilst out Christmas Shopping. He tracked her down to a friend's house where she was staying. They bade each other farewell tearfully but gave into their feelings for each other and ended up sleeping together again. Rebecca explained to Martin that she planned to move to Dubai permanently and offered him the chance to go with her for a fresh start but Martin refused, not wanting to abandon his children and Rebecca left for Dubai alone.

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