Mary Docherty

Mary Docherty was a woman who called at 1 Coronation Street in April 1998, having arrived in the street by taxi. After introducing herself on the doorstep to Ken Barlow, she explained that she had formally been involved with the fraudulent and bigamous Jon Lindsay - although he was calling himself James Anderson at that time.

Having read about Deirdre Rachid's custodial sentence and the subsequent campaign for her release in the Sunday newspaper, Mary felt compelled to visit Ken and share her details. She produced a photograph of the couple's wedding day in June 1994 - with Lindsay wearing his synonymous pilot's uniform, before explaining about the credit card fraud he had tried to implicate her in and the subsequent debt of £17,000. The evidence had all been submitted to Luton CID who had been dealing with the case, however Lindsay had evaded arrest to this point as he'd vanished from the area.

Mary stated that she'd stay as long as it took to see "the scumbag get his comeuppance" and Ken quickly set about making telephone calls. He later introduced Mary to Mike Baldwin, who in turn had arranged an impromptu meeting with Deirdre's solicitor Frances Stillman. Weighing up all the potentially incriminating evidence now against Lindsay, the solicitor was confident of securing Deirdre's release pretty swiftly.