Pat Phelan

Patrick James "Pat" Phelan is the father of Nicola Rubinstein and husband of Eileen Phelan.

Phelan has become noted as one of Coronation Street's most iconic characters and notorious villains of all-time, comparable to the likes of Richard Hillman and Jim McDonald.

He has terrorised Anna Windass since 2014 upon plunging her family into financial ruin, coercing her into having sex with him - which destroyed her relationship with Owen Armstrong in the process - and framing her for Seb Franklin's ladder accident. In 2017, it was revealed that Phelan had previously raped the mother of his long-lost daughter Nicola Rubinstein; though the pair bonded for a couple of months around the year, Nicola ended up discovering the truth about her villainous father and promptly cut all ties with Phelan. Their relationship had occurred around the time Phelan was revealed to have secretly kept Andy Carver prisoner for nearly a whole year since January 2017; on that day, Phelan seemingly murdered him after a one-on-one brawl before the character went on to proceed in marrying Eileen Grimshaw.

Over the course of his nefarious activities, Phelan has indirectly caused the deaths of Michael Rodwell and Vinny Ashford before becoming directly responsible for the killings of Andy and Luke Britton.

2013-2014: Feud with the Armstrong/Windass clan
Pat Phelan was a client of Owen Armstrong and temporarily became his business partner. When he refused to pay Owen for a job, Owen soon discovered that Pat was bankrupt. Owen then attempted to get the money out of Pat's wife Valerie, however, she refused to pay. Owen and Gary Windass broke into Pat's home, stole his motorbike and locked it away at the Builder's Yard. Pat eventually decided to pay up what he owed and seemingly called it quits.

A few days before Christmas, Pat turned up at 6 Coronation Street in order to put forward a business proposition to Owen, offering him a flat-conversion contract and wanting Owen to front the project as he was bankrupt. Owen's partner Anna Windass wasn't pleased and didn't want Owen to agree. However, a couple of weeks later, Phelan and Owen met up to discuss the deal with Phelan telling Owen that he needed £80,000 upfront for the costs but guaranteed that he would make over £200,000 in profits. Owen decided to talk the arrangement over with Anna with Phelan stating that he would give Owen twenty-four hours to think things over. Despite family reservations, the business partnership was agreed.

When Owen realised that Phelan didn't put his share into the account he tried in vain to contact Phelan and believed that Phelan may have scammed them. Pat later turned up at the Builder's Yard and revealed that the money was already in the account, much to Owen's embarrassment. Anna then went round to Pat's house to apologise for having a go at him, but later felt uneasy in his presence and left. During numerous encounters with Pat and his wife, Anna felt increasingly awkward; especially on one occasion when Pat had stroked her across the back and kept complimenting her appearance.

Anna decided to settle the score and invited Phelan round to No.6 to tell him to back off. However, Phelan, seemingly oblivious to her demands, began to accuse her of trying to come onto him. He appeared to try and make a move on her but soon left leaving Anna worried. That night, she backed out of another meeting with Phelan and Valerie at Nick's Bistro, feigning illness. When Gary found out about Phelan's inappropriate advances towards his mother, he approached Pat at the building site after all the other staff working on the project had left and began to question him about what went on. Pat then began goading Gary, accused Anna of being a tart and going on further to call her names - which provoked him into punching Phelan. The pair then engaged in a physical fight, with Phelan gaining the upper hand until Gary struck him over the head with a plank of wood, knocking him unconscious.

Believing that he had killed Pat, Gary summoned Owen to the site but they quickly discovered there was no sign of him.

Phelan turned up again a few of days later, proving that he was alive and well. At the building site the following day, he took Gary and Owen into the site office and revealed the CCTV footage which showed Gary attacking him. Phelan assured both Gary and Owen that he had further copies, and then demanded that they either completed the work for a minimum wage gleaning no profit or he would hand the CCTV footage to the police. Owen complied to Phelan's orders despite Gary's reluctance, as Owen didn't want his grandson Jake to grow up without a father figure if Gary were to be sent to prison.

Phelan delighted in overworking Owen and Gary, who began to take their frustrations out on their family. Gary, deciding to get a measure of revenge on Phelan and to try and make a bit of money back, stole a shipment of tiles from him. However, Phelan found out it was Gary due to his poor attempt to cover his tracks and told Owen that, in exchange for him not going to the police, he had to agree to forfeit the £80,000 he invested in the job. Owen was outraged but felt he had no choice to agree. Phelan then twisted the knife by arranging for Owen to be removed from the council's list of approved builders, effectively blacklisting him which meant he could no longer get any independent work. Anna visited Phelan after realizing what strain his actions were causing to her family, and he gave her proposition: to have sex with him and he would let Gary and Owen go from the project. Although disgusted, Anna went along with Phelan's plans out of desperation and met him at the Dunford Hall Hotel where the pair slept together. After spending some time with him, a dirty and angry Anna left after Phelan laughed and teased her. The next day he told Owen and Gary to go home and got Owen to sign a form releasing him from the project. However, he refused to pay back Owen's investment, leaving him with a loan he was going to struggle to pay back.

In June 2014, Phelan sent the Windasses a postcard from Dubai in an attempt to rub his glory in further. Around this time, Anna admitted to Owen that she had slept with Pat in order for him to leave the Windass family alone. The revelation drove the couple apart as Owen was disgusted by her behaviour. However, things didn't work out for Phelan either as Valerie had finally seen him for what he really was and divorced him. As he was bankrupt and she had all the money and assets in her name, he was left with nothing.

2016: Return and relationship with Eileen Grimshaw
Phelan had returned to Weatherfield by January 2016, working as a labourer on the conversion project for Kevin Webster's new garage. Having witnessed the getaway from the bungled robbery at Nick's Bistro, Phelan stood in front of the car but Kevin, realising that the vehicle wasn't going to stop, pulled him to safety. As a concerned Anna went to check on Kevin, she was stunned to see Phelan.

As Phelan resumed his reign of terror upon Anna, he secretly established a coup against Owen's former partner Jason Grimshaw - sabotaging his business and further damaging his reputation to drive the lad into leaving Weatherfield, even though Jason never suspected Phelan of staging the events throughout the time. Phelan soon contacted his longtime friend Vinny Ashford and invited him over to participate in his nefarious activities. Together, the duo formed a scam project at the time Phelan began a relationship with Eileen Grimshaw. After Eileen's son Todd discovered the deception, he also went along with the scam. Eileen's ex-partner, Michael Rodwell, attempted to bring him down permanently. Michael broke into Phelan's office and discovered fake passports, but when Phelan arrived unexpectedly and noticed he was there; Michael threw a chair at him in desperation and ran out of the office in fear. Outside, as Michael collapsed from a heart attack, Phelan looked on as Michael lay dying instead of calling for an ambulance. He then walked away from the scene, leaving Michael to succumb to his heart attack. Todd found Michael dead the following morning and Vinny double-crossed Phelan and ran away with the money.

2017-2018: Kidnapping Andy Carver and discovery of Nicola Rubinstein
In December 2016, Andy Carver - who had a father-son relationship with Michael even though the two were never related - had grown aware of his father figure's rivalry with Phelan and correctly suspected the latter of causing his death. Phelan's continual clash with Kevin further convinced Andy of the truth and later attacked him in revenge. Though Phelan was knocked unconscious, he recovered in hospital and told Andy of his awareness about what really happened. Consequently, Phelan blackmailed Andy under the threat of reporting him to the police and having him charged with attempted murder. Firstly, Andy was ordered to steal the new iPads that Nick had bought for the Bistro; where Andy worked at. When Anna had fallen downstairs on New Year's Eve, Kevin's six-year-old son, Jack, ran off to get help and Phelan offered to help. He had to kick the door in to rescue Anna. After fixing the door, Phelan stole the receipt for Kevin's new pick-up truck. A few days later, Phelan called the retailer and changed the delivery address for the new truck. Andy was ordered to sell it. Andy and his girlfriend, Steph Britton, had planned to move to Portugal. A couple of days before they left, Phelan noticed that Kevin was filming him on CCTV and demanded that Andy set fire to the garage. Andy agreed. That night, Phelan poured vodka into Kevin's drink. Kevin went to sleep in a car at the garage. After Luke Britton and Tracy Barlow had sex the previous night, they also wanted CCTV footage deleted as it had been filming during the night. Afterwards, Andy poured petrol onto the floor, set fire to a bag and threw it down on the ground. Andy made off with Kevin's laptop containing the CCTV footage. On Phelan's wedding day, Phelan noticed Andy with the laptop with the footage playing. Phelan's last demand was to break the laptop. Andy hit him with it and Phelan pretended to be unconscious. He was able to grab Andy, who fought back, taking the struggle to the floor, Phelan gained the upper hand and grabbed Kevin's laptop and hit Andy with it. Phelan texted Steph using Andy's phone, leading her to believe that Andy had broken up with her and left for Bristol. Phelan then rushed to his wedding, where he married Eileen. Phelan later returned to 19a Victoria Street and attempted to clean the blood stains from the carpet with a wide assortment of cleaning products. With no progress being made, Phelan flooded the flat by breaking open the radiator.

Phelan had been gathering documents about Nicola Rubinstein who had been made Seb Franklin's case manager after he was granted parole from youth detention centre for assault. When she found out about this she reacted badly, claiming that the builder was stalking her. Phelan claimed that she had known her parents and while trying to prove his innocence, said that if he met up with them, he would be able to prove he had no bad intentions. Nicola told him to go to a bench by the lake at Greenfield Park. When Phelan got to the park, he noticed that the bench had been engraved with a plaque dedicated to the memory of her deceased parents. He revealed that he thought he might be her father. Nicola was unhappy to discover that her mother had ended the affair nine months before she was born and told Phelan that she'd rather not know whether or not he was her father.

When Eileen saw how much Nicola was affecting her husband, she decided to interfere by showing her a picture of Phelan dancing with Annabel Rubinstein. Annoyed by the thought of their affair, Nicola told Eileen to leave her alone and that if she or Phelan contacted her again, she would phone the police.

After discovering about Phelan and Nicola, Seb decided to try and get his case manager to talk to his boss again by telling Nicola that he had lost his job because Phelan was dying. Although she found out Seb was lying, Nicola decided to go to 11 Coronation Street and give Eileen a DNA test for Phelan to take. Two weeks later, she returned with the results and announced to Phelan that she was his daughter.

By August of the same year, Phelan's spare time was taken up by frequently visiting an old, derelict property he was supposedly "working on" with plastic bags containing food and drink and using them to care for a chained-up Andy Carver. For at least seven months, Phelan had been holding Andy captive in the basement. After Andy attempted to strangle Phelan to death with a cord from a mattress, Phelan threatened to kill Andy - before taking the mattress and setting it alight.

Phelan became worried when Daniel Osbourne began an investigation into the Calcutta Street property scam and went to interview Vinny's mother, who had dementia and lived in a care home. Phelan then threatened to hurt Daniel and used her to coax "Vinny" into returning. It emerged that the man who Phelan knew as "Vinny Ashford" was in fact really called Harvey McArdle. When Vinny obliged, Phelan knocked him unconscious, kidnapped him and chained him up in the basement with Andy. Phelan ordered Andy to kill Vinny with a gun he provided in exchange for his freedom. On the same day, Nicola learned from a family friend that her birth was the result of a sexual assault and not an affair as Phelan had claimed. After Nicola ordered Phelan to stay away from her, he reached a sinister turning point and once Andy had killed Vinny, Phelan turned the gun on Andy and shot him dead.

By then, Phelan's achievements in overcoming his situations were figuratively causing more issues for himself. In January 2018, when Andy's friend Luke Britton gradually began to enquire about Andy's "disappearance", which inevitably a confrontation with Phelan that ended with the pair attacking each other before both the pair engaged in a dramatic car chase - culminating with Phelan ultimately crashing Luke's car before shooting him in the head. Luke, however, survived and Phelan confessed to killing Andy before firing two bullets at the petrol tank of his car, where he missed the first time but the second one hit the tank and Luke was killed in the explosion.

First and last lines
"Well... Owen!" (First line).