Leo Thompkins was Jenny Connor's fiancé who was murdered by Stephen Reid in 2022. A civil engineer, Leo arrived in the street when he was called out to fix the sinkhole at No.8. He fell for Jenny and they dated, despite a considerable age gap.
After being made redundant, Leo accepted a job in Canada and Jenny agreed to give up the Rovers Return and marry him. However, his interest in Stephen Reid's financial troubles led to a confrontation between the two men ended in Leo being thrown off the gantry at Underworld, killing him.
Biography
Leo first came to Coronation Street in September 2021 when he called at No.8 to give a quote to the Platt family to fix a sinkhole that a crooked Ray Crosby had engineered in the back garden the previous year in an attempt to force them to sell up to make place for a new development he was involved in.
A week later, with the job at No.8 landed, he called into the Rovers Return Inn for the first time, where he caught the eye of both Jenny Connor and her step-daughter barmaid Daisy Midgeley who was then at an impasse in her love life. Jenny did her best to get the two youngsters interested in each other and chatted him up on Daisy's behalf, not realising that in the process it was actually her that was making a positive impression on him. He returned to the pub a couple of days later, flirting with both ladies but giving them no idea of his true interest. Daisy, more taken with Daniel Osbourne, showed little enthusiasm in reciprocating but Jenny wasn't to be put off, organising a beer tasting evening to get Leo into the pub's back room with her. A few days later, Leo called back with a large bunch of flowers but found himself unable to say to Jenny's face how he felt about her. Instead, he left a card with the present which read "Dear 'J', fancy a date?"
All too aware of the age-gap between them Jenny refused a date, but Leo wasn't to be put off, asking that they go for a drink to find out what they had in common. Flattered, Jenny agreed and Leo ended up staying the night.
Soon afterwards, disaster struck the street when a record fall of torrential rain, linked to the still unfixed sinkhole, led to a sewer collapse. With his specialist knowledge, Leo was heavily involved in dealing with the night's catastrophe. Panicked and looking for him, Jenny fell into the darkened morass and her estranged husband Johnny Connor, realising at last how much he still loved her, climbed down to rescue her. He died in the attempt and Jenny was devastated to have lost him, even though both of them had previously stated that they felt that their troubled marriage had come to an end.
Sensing that Jenny needed space to grieve, Leo kept his distance for a couple of months but finally came back to the pub shortly after Christmas to find out why she had been avoiding his texts. He suggested she come and see him play in a rugby match and although not exactly relishing the thought of the event, Jenny went with reluctance and found that she thoroughly enjoyed watching the well-built men play against each other. She entered back into the relationship, buoyed up when she met his friends who told her that he had spoken of little else but her over the past few weeks however doubts about the age gap waivered in her mind, particularly when she met his father Teddy Thompkins and realised that they had been friends at Weatherfield Comprehensive. When Leo's house-share mates moved on with their lives, she invited him to move into the Rovers, though he insisted he pay his way with a proper rental agreement. This arrangement had to suddenly change when he was made redundant and though she gave him a rent holiday, he paid his way with the help of a loan from his father while he looked for alternative employment.
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Personality
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Background information
Following Leo's death, Joe Frost reprised the role in a brief flashback experienced by Stephen Reid in Episode 10753/4 (26th September 2022). He returned again in Episode 10890/1 (2nd March 2023) after Stephen accidentally took LSD and suffered hallucinations of Leo and his father Teddy (Grant Burgin).
First and last lines
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Appendices
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