Ben Lockhart

Ben Lockhart was a solicitor and an acquaintance of Aidan Connor's. He had used Ben's professional services at various times in the past and contacted Ben again after Maria Connor had been arrested on suspicion of murdering Caz Hammond, the former girlfriend of Kate Connor. Caz had been taken in by Maria as a kindly gesture after she had found her sleeping rough. She fell in love with Maria but after her advances were spurned, she as quickly turned against her and staged her own disappearing act. Aidan's motives in trying to assist Maria were not entirely altruistic: he also had fallen in love with her and the two were having an affair, despite him being in a relationship with Eva Price. He was convinced of Maria's innocence and hired Ben to free her.

The two met in the Rovers Return Inn to discuss matters where Kate, still carrying a torch for her former girlfriend, overheard what was going on and lambasted her brother for his seeming lack of loyalty. Ben visited a despondent Maria on remand in prison, telling her that there was a lot of work to do and she needed to present a confident and credible story to the jury should the case come to court, and to do that they needed to go over and over what had happened to cast doubt on any evidence. Kirk tried to interest Ben in some credit card statements of Maria's that showed items she suuposedly bought in London on 24th October which she denied buying and which was a date when Caz had said she had been in Nottingham. Ben and Aidan dismissed the statement, not realising that it held the clue to break the case.

It was Kate who saw that one of the items that Caz had purchased was a webcam and deduced that, based on past behaviours, she had purchased another and probably had it installed in Maria's flat to overhear conversations - she was right, and she successfully lured Caz there with a declaration of her love which enabled the police to arrest her.

Maria's problems weren't over: the police investigation revealed that earlier in the year in Cyprus she had entered into an false marriage with Pablo Duarte, a gay Argentinian man, to enable him to illegally enter the UK. She was arrested for that and Ben advised her that she faced a custodial sentence. She fired him from her case though, not being able to pay his fees and having realised that Aidan wasn't going to leave Eva for her, thus breaking off her relationship with him. She subsequently received a twelve-month custodial sentence.

Early in the following year, Aidan needed Ben's services again. Peter and Adam Barlow had staked a claim to part ownership of Underworld based upon two dubious transactions some years before involving Paul, Liam and Carla Connor. Ben advised an outraged Aidan to pay them off, pointing out that even if he won, such cases cost a lot of money and that his present advice was itself costing a few hundred pounds. In the end, through two separate pieces of blackmail, Aidan and Johnny managed to get the Barlow boys to drop their claims.

List of appearances
2016 2017
 * Mon 28th Nov
 * Wed 30th Nov
 * Mon 5th Dec (1)
 * Mon 9th Jan (2)