Ashley Peacock

Ashley Sibelius Peacock is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street. He is the son of Fred Elliott and Kathleen Gutteridge, although he was raised by Sam and Beryl Peacock.

Ashley was married to Maxine Peacock in 1999, but he ended up a widower when Maxine was murdered by Richard Hillman. He is now married to Claire. In April 2002, Maxine gave birth to Joshua, who Ashley believed was his child, although tests later revealed that Joshua is actually not Ashley's biological son but rather the son of a man with whom Maxine had a one-night stand (who was also the doctor who had performed surgery on Ashley that day), Matt Ramsden. Ashley is aware of this but regards Joshua as his own son, and he is listed as the father on Joshua's birth certificate. Ashley has recently had an affair with Casey Carswell, Claire's best friend, and he is presently trying to heal his marriage.

The character first appeared in 1996 and is portrayed by Steven Arnold.

Storylines
Ashley Peacock is the biological son of Fred Elliott, and shares a similar accent to him. His wife Maxine was murdered by Richard Hillman in January 2003, and it took him a long time to get over the tragedy. Eventually, Ashley realised that he would need help looking after his young son Joshua, and decided to hire a nanny. Claire Casey was the chosen candidate, and after a while the two fell in love. They were married on Christmas Day in 2004. On their first anniversary, Claire announced to Ashley that she was pregnant. Their son Freddie was born on July 17, 2006.

Other than the storyline involving the death of Maxine, more recently, Fred challenged a rival butcher, Eddie Maddocks, to a boxing match, which was between Ashley and the butcher's son Marvin, who happened to be the local champion. On the day, Fred dropped a mass on to Ashley's foot, mildly injuring him. Ashley carried on with the fight, but during the match various other fights started between the spectators resulting in a riot. Watching on a bemused Ashley and Marvin agreed on a tie.

Fred went to see Audrey Roberts a few minutes before he was supposed to marry Beverly Unwin, however he died before he left Audrey's house. Although Ashley swears that Fred and Audrey weren't having an affair other residents of the street don't believe him, so he has to cope with the loss of his father and prevent people tarnishing his memory. Ashley also blames Audrey for Fred's death because she told him that she loved him the week before he was due to marry Beverly. Ashley has also had to deal with the effects of the post partum depression which affected his wife, Claire, after the birth of their son Freddie.

In May 2007, after Ashley and Josh went out for the day, Claire and their neighbour Eileen had a meal together and after Eileen left Claire went to sleep. She woke to the sound of a fire alarm and fire spreading through the house. Claire was rescued by Jamie Baldwin and Kirk Sutherland but they could not get back in for Freddie. After fearing the worse the baby was found half a mile away in a local park the next day. A fire investigation showed that accelerant had been used to start the fire, leading the police to believe that it had been started deliberately.

Claire started to suspect former friend Casey Carswell and Ashley thought it wouldn't be her.

More recently, Ashley kissed Casey and they both agreed to forget about the situation. However it turned out that Casey didn't intend to forget about it and she and Ashley had sex in the conservatory. They were nearly caught by Claire who returned from her trauma support group. Casey manipulated a guillable Ashley into sleeping with her and Audrey and Kevin know the full story. Ashley then decided that he was to be with Claire, and told Casey that their relationship was over. Casey was adamant that Ashley still loved her, so she kept pestering him. This caused Claire to get suspicious, as Casey had previously lived at the Peacocks whilst she was away, and asked Ashley if he had slept with Casey. He denied it.

As Casey was obsessed with Ashley, she did anything to get his attention, this even included taking Freddie from Kirk. She told Kirk that Ashley had told her to take Freddie, so he gave him to her. She then took him to her flat and locked him out on the balcony until Ashley turned up. When Ashley turned up, he was horrified to see photos of him on all of Casey's walls, it was obvious she had stalked him. Shocked by this, he tried to reason with her to get Freddie back. As he was doing this, Claire turned up. Casey shouted at Ashley to get rid of her but she barged in, whilst Ashley told Audrey to phone the police. After talking to Casey about hers and Ashley's affair, Claire managed to get Freddie back, who was safe and well, but this could not be said about Ashley and Claire's marriage. Casey also confessed to starting the fire at the Peacocks' house.

After all was revealed about Ashley's affair with Casey, Claire told Ashley their marriage was over. He left the Peacock home and has ended up on Kevin's sofa. He sees Josh and Freddie regularly, but the tension between Claire and Ashley is obvious. Claire was struggling looking after Josh, Freddie and going to work but didn't forgive Ashley as he hurt her too much. Ashley stayed at Audrey's, along with David and Bill, as he thought he had overstayed his welcome at the Websters. He and Claire have now got back together after Claire's experience at a singles night in which she kissed Ashley's friend Kevin.

On 10 November 2008, Ashley employed Graeme Proctor as a butcher at Elliot & Sons following the teenager's release from the Young Offenders Institution.