DS Marsden

DS Marsden along with her junior colleague DC Vanner, rushed to the Farnhaven Hall Hotel in October 2014 when Carla Barlow reported her own brother Rob Donovan as the murderer of Tina McIntyre on the very day that he was due to marry Tracy Barlow.

Realising that his sister had betrayed him, Tracy attacked Carla in front of the other guests and the police officer's first action was to separate the two women. All of the guests were then detained as the police made their preliminary investigation of the matter, annoyed that Rob that done a runner after being tipped off by Carla.

They interviewed Carla first and got her to confess that she had wilfully withheld information from them for twelve hours since discovering Rob's crime. They were dubious about her report overall, wondering if Carla was only fingering Rob as the criminal to exonerate Peter Barlow who was by then serving a life sentence for the crime.

They then shocked Tracy by arresting her on a charge of perverting the cause of justice and leading her away from the wedding venue in handcuffs. Under questioning, a sobbing Tracy maintained the alibi that she had given Rob for the night of the murder and tried to divert attention to Carla but to no avail. Marsden pointed out that Rob had left her to face the consequences and she should look after number one but she found Tracy a hard case to crack. Eventually, Tracy confessed that Rob was covering for her as she had left the party they were both attending to pick up stolen goods for Barlow's Buys on the night of the murder so her alibi for him held no water. Tracy was duly released on bail but the charge were dropped when she later led them to Rob's hiding place.