Pat Phelan

Patrick James "Pat" Phelan is the villainous ex husband of Eileen Grimshaw, father of Nicola Rubinstein and grandfather to Zac.

He had 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 Annabel Rubinstein, the mother of his long-lost daughter Nicola; though the pair bonded for a couple of months, 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 marrying Eileen Grimshaw.

Over the course of his nefarious activities, Phelan indirectly caused the deaths of Michael Rodwell and Vinny Ashford before becoming directly responsible for the killings of Andy and Luke Britton. When his crimes began to come to light, Phelan planned to flee the country, however he was knocked over the edge of the platform and into the icy cold sea following a dramatic stand off with Eileen; whom he had just confessed to of his heinous acts.

Unknown to anyone else, Phelan had survived and he began keeping a low profile as he recuperated in a B&B and then resided temporarily at a caravan park in Abergele, North Wales, under the name of "Alan Frost". His survival was eventually discovered by Gary, who kidnapped Phelan and brought him back to Weatherfield with a plan to make him suffer.

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 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 realising 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 and taunted him in the process, even telling a sadistic story of how Phelan had shot and injured an animal in its youth, but unable to kill it he watched it suffer and die. 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. Phelan contemplated fleeing the country, however as he was low on cash and unable to start a new life, he returned home and claimed to Eileen and the residents that he was also a victim of Vinnie's scams, and promised everyone that he would work hard to pay them back. Eileen was disgusted with Phelan for losing Jason's money and contemplated ending their relationship, however she forgave Phelan and they got back together, and the wedding was still on.

2017-: Andy Carver, Nicola Rubinstein and falling off the tops


In December 2016, Andy Carver - who had a father-son relationship with Michael even though the pair were not 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. 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 the 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.



Prior to this, however, Phelan was summoned to the bench by Nicola when she learns from Anna about what he did to her back in 2014. As such, Nicola used this information to question the truth about her father from her mother's neighbor Lydia Hartman - who revealed that Phelan had previously raped her mother Annabel just nine months before she herself was conceived. Confronted by his daughter, Phelan unsuccessfully attempts to assuage Nicola's suspicions over the matter and was subsequently disowned when she brands him evil. Realizing that Anna told Nicola the truth about him, Phelan spitefully plots to frame her for pushing Seb off the ladder; he had recently fell off the ladder during one of his window cleaning shifts. This works successfully after Phelan plants evidence that incriminates Anna for the crime, and then manipulates Seb into having her arrested later on. Anna was subsequently charged and then due for court early in 2018. Around the time before Christmas, Anna manages to escape from prison and secretly reunites with her daughter Faye - who had only just learned the truth about Phelan as well. However, after catching Anna out following her unintentional attack on Eileen in his office, Phelan calls the police on her and Anna is consequently rearrested. When Phelan visits her under the promise of further revenge, Anna loses it and slaps Phelan before getting restrained - prompting him to have her charged for assault as well. On the day of her trial, Phelan testifies against Anna and - thanks to Eileen's corporation - she is found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.



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 eventually crashing Luke's car before shooting him in the chest. Reversing behind Luke's totaled car, Phelan indirectly confessed to killing Andy before telling Luke to "say hello" to him as he fired two bullets at the petrol tank of his car - causing an explosion which both destroyed the vehicle and killed Luke in the process. By the time Luke's death had become public knowledge, Seb grew increasingly suspicious towards Phelan as the latter had earlier showed Seb the gun during one of their drinking sessions; Phelan had recently planned to frame Seb for Andy's murder, but Luke's inference thanks to Seb telling him where Phelan was had ultimately led to the events of his murder. When being confronted over his anxiety, Seb concluded that Phelan killed Luke and hurriedly left the house as he feared his life would be in danger.

On the day of Anna's conviction, Phelan was surprised when Nicola returned before him and asked for his forgiveness. He accepted her apology and the pair seemingly renewed their relationship by the time Pat had received a building site job from his boss Mona Beattie. His suspicions were aroused when Nicola requested her father to reluctantly hire Gary so that he can provide for both her and their impending baby, Pat's soon-to-be grandchild. However, by mid-February, his suspicions were confirmed when he infiltrated her flat to find Seb there; he had taken refugee at Nicola's once Anna was found guilty, and she had since been conspiring with Seb and Gary against her father upon learning about Luke and Anna. Outraged at her daughter's betrayal, Phelan confronted her on the day she collapsed and was rushed to hospital. Unable to persuade Nicola in changing her beliefs about him, he tearfully threw out his daughter and disowned her before explaining the situation to Eileen - whom Phelan then declares is the only person left he is capable of trusting, and even resorts that Nicola can "go to hell" along with Gary and Seb.

In March, Pat heard that the Legacy Reach Paper Mill, where the bodies were hidden, was being renovated, and the millpond where they were submerged was to be drained. Phelan took a job at the site and on the day the water was being drained, after the other employees had gone home for the night, Phelan moved the bodies and dumped them in the foundations, filling them with concrete but ended up falling in himself; trying to retrieve his mobile phone. Eileen had been trying to call him as he was late for his own party, and the guests were getting bored waiting. Tim Metcalfe and Eileen arrived just in time to save him from the setting concrete. Due to this, Phelan admitted to his role in the Calcutta Street development scam to Tim and Eileen, who was listening on the cab radio. Tim demanded that Phelan leave Weatherfield when Eileen couldn't bring herself into reporting him to the police. Phelan initially planned on sabotaging Tim's efforts, but it was then that he discovered that the bodies were now on the verge of being discovered. Realising that it was too risky to relocate them once more, Phelan planned to flee the country by organising a trip with Eileen under the guise of staying at a coastal cottage. Despite her reluctance, Eileen agreed with Phelan's plan and the pair left after dropping off Summer at No.7 for a sleepover with Dev Alahan's children, Asha and Aadi. As Eileen settled into her "week's holiday trip" at the cottage, Phelan was notified that the bodies had been found and he instantly packed a bag along with a passport. Eileen began to grew sceptical of Phelan when he told her that she was "crowding him", leading to a furious row between the pair that ended with Eileen cutting herself. Phelan comforted her and left to call an ambulance. As he was doing this however, Eileen received a voicemail from Tim, who - upon learning of the discovery of the bodies following the arrest of Gary and Seb, as they were the ones who discovered them in the midst of seeking out Phelan's gun to prove his role in the murder of Luke Britton - desperately warned Eileen about her husband's capability. Eileen, who was now afraid of the situation that Phelan had put her in, tried to call Tim back after telling Phelan that she needed some space. When she managed to get through to Tim however, Eileen noticed Phelan watching her the whole time. Knowing that the game was up at last, Phelan quickly grabbed Eileen's phone and tossed it into the sea before accusing her of betraying him. Eileen loudly berated back at him, demanding to know what he'd done. Phelan then started to enumerate his crimes: confessing to causing Michael's death, kidnapping Andy and then killing him after coercing him to execute Vinny - who Phelan claimed had intended to kill Eileen and Todd in the course of the Calcutta Street scenario. This caused Eileen to conclude that Phelan had indeed killed Luke as Seb had previously claimed, and that he himself raped Anna before framing her for committing GBH. After branding Phelan a "murderer" and a "rapist", Eileen withheld his getaway keys as he angrily demanded her hand them over to him. When Eileen continued berating her husband whilst rejecting his demands, Phelan snapped and lunged at Eileen - only to break the railing on the edge and fall toward the sea, though he managed to survive by clinging onto a rope. As Phelan desperately tried to get back up to the surface, he tried to persuade Eileen to save him by claiming he knew where Todd, Eileen's son was. Eileen angrily stamped on his hands whilst branding him a liar. Eventually, Phelan lost his grip and fell into the sea below.

Phelan survived the fall and managed to make his way to a B&B where he began his recuperation under the name, "Alan Frost", an alias he'd created two years previously. Back home, he was presumed dead and Eileen was left to take the rap for his crimes, as she was suspected as being an accomplice, though she was eventually let off the hook. After learning that Eileen, Nicola and other residents of Weatherfield called for Anna Windass to be released from prison - a campaign started by Daniel - Phelan checked out of the B&B and began plotting his revenge.

Phelan moved to a caravan park in Abergele, Wales, where he began using a false identity on a mother's social group in order to keep contact with an oblivious Nicola, and even offered her advice on the website and comfort. However this proved a vital error as a suspicious Gary Windass began to look into the mysterious contact and found out that it was Phelan. Gary and his army friend Joe Haslam tracked down Phelan's location and scouted him out for the next couple of days. Armed with a bat, Gary entered Phelan's caravan and attempted to attack him with it, however Phelan overpowered Gary and came close to killing him with the bat, but unfortunately for Phelan Joe entered the caravan and hit Phelan from behind with a rock, which knocked him out cold. Phelan was kidnapped by the pair and brought back to Weatherfield, where he was tied up in a room at the Builder's Yard.

After being left alone at the builder's yard, Phelan was found by Jack Webster who was passing by. Phelan attempted to persuade Jack to release him, claiming that he was tied up as he was playing a game of cops and robbers with Gary, only to appear to be rumbled when Jack said he knew who Phelan was and that he overheard his dad Kevin say bad things about him. Phelan began to talk the lad round by claiming that Kevin was just joking around, and bribed Jack with a tenner to release him. Jack agreed and began cutting Phelan's bonds, however Gary and Sarah arrived back and talked Jack out of it, and after paying him off sent him on his way with the promise that he won't tell anyone.

When Gary was torn on how to make Phelan suffer, Sarah begged him to go to the police instead. Phelan taunted Gary with remarks about Anna and their time back in the hotel room in which he forced her to have sex, which caused Gary to lose his cool once again and hit Phelan with a plank of wood. Gary gagged Phelan and Sarah continued to plead with him to phone the police. Whilst Gary's back was turned, Phelan managed to break himself loose and hit Gary with a chair. Phelan locked the builder's yard gate, locking the pair of them in, and retrieved his firearm and forced the pair of them back into the garage where he held a gun to Sarah and ordered Gary to contact Nicola and tell her to come over; and to also bring his newly born grandson Zac with her. Sarah "called" Nicola, however in reality actually phoned Tim Metcalfe in hopes that the message would stir up some suspicion and that he would get help. When it became clear that Nicola wasn't coming, an angered Phelan discovered Sarah's deceit and came close to shooting her with the gun, however Gary begged him not to do so. Phelan refrained from killing the pair, instead he tied them and locked up the builder's yard and made his way to No.11 in order to confront Nicola himself, managing to stay undetected in the process.

A shocked Nicola answered the door to Phelan and he made his way in, and threatened her and Eileen at gunpoint. During the hostage situation, Phelan made cruel remarks towards Eileen about their marriage and claimed that she repulsed him, before ordering Nicola to let him get to Zac, because despite the fact she didn't view him as her father anymore it didn't change the fact he was an heir to the Phelan name. However Nicola was defiant against Phelan and was adamant to protect her child, claiming that he would have to kill her first. Phelan contemplated doing so, even pointing the gun at Nicola which shocked Eileen. Seb (who was hiding upstairs) attacked Phelan from behind and a struggled ensued which resulted in Eileen being knocked unconscious to the floor, and Phelan firing his weapon; which rang through the street.

Background information

 * Connor McIntyre originally appeared in the role of Pat Phelan on a six-month basis from October 2013 to April 2014.
 * In November 2015, news was teased on the official Facebook and Twitter pages for Coronation Street about the return of a character who would have ties to Anna Windass, in which fans were to guess. Phelan was eventually unveiled as the soon to be returning character. His return aired in January 2016, in which McIntyre was made a regular member of the cast.
 * The story in which Phelan murdered Vinny Ashford and Andy Carver received 662 complaints from viewers over "violent" scenes which they claimed were too "harrowing" to air. Corrie were later cleared by Ofcom.
 * In the episode broadcast on Good Friday 2018, it was initially believed that Phelan had met his maker after losing his grip on the edge of the pier. However, he turned out to be alive and well; albeit a deep cut on his leg, and was recuperating in bed at a B&B in Ireland, having checked in under the name "Alan Frost".

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