Gary Jenkinson was the possessive boyfriend of Claire Casey who began working as a nanny for Ashley Peacock's son Joshua in April 2003 following the murder of Maxine three months earlier. After an uncertain start to her job, she and Ashley began to get along well, although she confessed to neighbour Maria Sutherland that Gary was unhappy with the number of hours that she was working.
Gary was further infuriated that Claire refused to acknowledge their relationship to Ashley and acted rudely towards him and Fred Elliott. Claire later confessed to Ashley that she found Gary to be hard to deal with and, being nothing more than friendly, he suggested to her that she finish with him. She promptly did so, much to Ashley's subsequent discomfort. Things got even more difficult soon afterwards when a dedication for "Unchained Melody" was played from Claire to Ashley over the radio, embarrassing the butcher and starting the gossip-mongers in the Street, principally Norris Cole, that Ashley and Claire were much more than employer and employee. Archie Shuttleworth then spotted an engagement announcement between the two in the pages of the Gazette. This enraged Ashley who had only been a widower for less than six months. He confronted Claire and she tearfully realised that it was probably Gary behind the occurrences as he blamed Ashley for their break-up. Things started to get out of control when Gary decorated the Street with posters offering congratulations on Ashley and Claire's engagement, supposedly from Maxine. Enraged beyond endurance, Ashley demanded Gary's address from a terrified Claire and sped round to his house where he gave chase and punched the now-terrified lad several times in the face before being pulled off by Kirk Sutherland, Jason Grimshaw and Tyrone Dobbs all of whom Fred had quickly press-ganged into helping him, afraid that his son would do something stupid. Fred also warned Gary never to approach any of his family again or he would deal with him. Ashley later felt ashamed for his violent actions and apologised to Claire for believing that she was involved in Gary's actions. The two started to get on better than ever and a romance soon developed. In trying to create a breach between the two, Gary actually ended up bringing them together.
List of appearances
2003