When Fred Elliott started to suffer severe back pains in February 2000, he jumped at the suggestion of a massage by Mrs Mawdsley, a customer of his butcher's counter in Freshco. Fred called at her home by appointment one evening and was in the middle of his “treatment” when a squad of police headed by D.S. Johnson raided the property and arrested Mrs Mawdsley for keeping a lewd house. Fred was also taken in for questioning, watched by a passing Tyrone Dobbs.
Fred was subjected to many ribald comments in the Rovers but when the police dropped the charges against both Mrs Mawdsley and himself, he threatened anyone who again made similar comments with slander.