Bob was a crooked associate of Pat Phelan who helped the crooked builder both defraud Norris Cole and help exact a form of revenge after the newsagent had been rude to Phelan. One morning, Norris had barked at Phelan across the street that since he seemed to have nothing to do, he could take a look at his roof tiles on 3 Coronation Street. Annoyed at the tone of Norris's words, Phelan refused. Ordered by his boss, Jason Grimshaw, not to antagonise the local gossip, Phelan offered his services, but was further angered when Norris made caustic comments about the work they had done on the annex at 8 Coronation Street which had collapsed after Tyrone Dobbs hit it by accident in the Webster's Autocentre van.
A few days' later, Phelan passed Norris when he and Mary Taylor were looking up at the roof and was again sent away with a flea in his ear about Jason's Construction taking on the job. Later that day, Bob turned up in The Kabin, smartly dressed and well-spoken, and stepped in to a conversation between Norris and Mary about the roof, claiming that his name was Alastair Burton, a property developer, who was doing up a listed Edwardian summer house in the country and therefore needed original tiles of the period which were like gold dust. An intrigued Norris asked further questions and was told that he would receive enough money to reroof his house and leave funds left over if he sold "Alastair" his tiles. He then examined the roof through binoculars and declared that most of them were the originals and that he and Norris could do business together. As Phelan guessed, Norris was dubious about the developer’s credentials and the two men staged a sudden phone call about some work which needed doing at the Duke of Gloucester’s manor house in Northamptonshire, appealing to the newsagent's snobbery. Mary expressed some caution about taking up the offer, but Norris had been too hooked by the scam to back down and sneered at Phelan and Jason when they warned him to be careful of working with someone from outside the area.
Bob turned up with his men who stripped No.3's tiles off the roof and assured Norris that the new ones would be there in ten minutes. but they then shot away in the truck without handing over any money, leaving a watching Norris aghast. With no other options open to him, Norris was forced to swallow his pride and accept Phelan's offer to cover and retile the roof at mates' rates. Norris was genuinely pleased at the work that Phelan did and offered to buy him a drink, not knowing that the builder was just about to meet Bob, now without his cut glass accent and dressed in a donkey jacket, round the corner at Viaduct Street to thank him for his work and receive his cut of the money they’d conned out of Norris.
Concurrent with these events, Jason was under suspicion for the death of gangster Callum Logan, a crime for which Kylie Platt was actually responsible. Wanting to take over the running of Jason's business, Phelan piled on the pressure, making him think that Callum's friends were out for revenge and used Bob's services again to assist by getting him to torch Jason's van and scare him away. With Jason choosing to begin a new life in Thailand, Phelan took control of the business, telling Bob he intended to use its healthy bank account to his own advantage.
- The character was credited in all of his appearances as "Alastair Burton", even after his real identity was revealed.
List of appearances[]
2016