Colin Harvey was Alan Howard's assistant mechanic at the Canal Garage from 1971 to 1972.
Before the garage, Colin worked as a van driver at the Town Hall and knew Janet Reid. In August 1971, he ran into Janet at the corner shop and told her he'd been inspired by her change of career and wanted a change himself - he'd just had an interview at the Mark Brittain Warehouse for another driving job but was looking for something else. Janet was glad to catch up with him and suggested he see Alan Howard about a trainee mechanic's job at the garage. Colin did so and was taken on.
After a while, Colin realised he liked Janet and was pleased when she kept visiting the garage apparently just to flirt with him. Ignoring Elsie Howard's advice to forget about Janet as she was too experienced for him, Colin turned to Alan for help only to get a tongue lashing from his boss, who was tired of hearing about his love life. Unbeknown to Colin, Janet was actually having an affair with Alan and was using Colin as a cover to visit the garage to see him.
Colin was still working at the garage as of August 1972, when Alan left him in charge for two weeks while he went away to visit his ex-wife Laura, as he was in arrears with his repayments to her from when she loaned him the money to buy the garage (without Elsie's knowledge).