Lucy Woodrow is the ex-wife of Stu Carpenter who helped frame him for their daughter Bridget's murder of teenager Charlie Walter for almost three decades.
While working as a chef in the 1980s Stu began a sexual relationship with teenage waitress Charlie behind his wife's back. One day Bridget decided to visit her father's restaurant to show him the clay model of their dog Albert she had made in school. However, when she arrived she uncovered the affair after seeing Stu and Charlie together. She confronted Charlie at the bus stop and when Charlie laughed at her she hit her with the model killing her instantly. Afterward Bridget contacted her mother who helped move the body to a shallow grave. Stu was implicated in the murder after his forensic DNA was found at the scene. Lucy lied to the police that Stu hadn't returned home on the night of Charlie's murder and corrupt police officer Gordon Lennox managed to get a false confession out of Stu by severely mistreating him.
In July 2022, Stu had managed to rehabilitate himself after spending almost three decades in prison. He was now in a relationship with Yasmeen Metcalfe and living at 6 Coronation Street. He decided to reach out to his daughter again after having no contact since his imprisonment but she turned him away. Fearing that their secret would be discovered, Lucy showed up at Yasmeen's restaurant Speed Daal the following month to confront her ex-husband. When Yasmeen stepped in to defend Stu, Lucy informed her about his conviction for Charlie's murder. Yasmeen listened in disbelief to Lucy's revelation after which she severed all contact with Stu and reported him to the police for harassment when he continued to try and interact with her.
Despite Yasmeen cutting Stu out of her life her grandchildren Alya and Zeedan Nazir were unconvinced regarding his guilt and teamed up with solicitor Adam Barlow who agreed to get them in touch with one of his contacts that dealt in cold cases. Her grandchildren were eventually able to persuade Yasmeen to give Stu the benefit of the doubt but she insisted that he had to inform his daughter about his intentions. Showing up at Bridget's house Stu was shocked to discover that he had a granddaughter Eliza who he had never been told about. After learning about his intentions to reopen the murder investigation, Lucy panicked and told to him that reopening the case would only dig everything back up and cause problems for his daughter and granddaughter. She insisted that she wouldn't stand in his way of rebuilding his relationship with his child if he dropped the case.
Having agreed to drop the case, Stu began to form a connection with Bridget and Eliza over the next month but Lucy continued to feel uneasy about his presence. She attempted to turn Eliza against her grandfather by exposing the fact that he had been to prison. Although Bridget called her mother out for being hard-faced "after everything" something which Alya, who had been continuing to secretly work on the case with the help of Dee-Dee Bailey, picked up on. Alya became convinced that Lucy had murdered Charlie and managed to obtain some of her DNA from a coffee mug and had Dee-Dee send it away for analysis. However, when Dee-Dee discovered that Stu wasn't supporting the continued investigation she pulled the plug and refused to give Alya the test results without Stu's consent.
In October, Bridget finally couldn't cope with the guilt and confessed everything to Stu. Stu informed Yasmeen about Lucy's confession but decided that he wanted to keep her secret as he had already served his time and didn't want to lose his daughter. Yasmeen insisted that Lucy and Bridget deserved to face justice. Meanwhile, Alya lied to Dee-Dee that Stu was back onside with the investigation and so Dee-Dee revealed that Lucy's DNA was a match with forensic evidence that had been found on Charlie when she died. Alya worked out that Lucy had been protecting her daughter and reported them both to the police. Stu initially blamed Yasmeen for reporting his daughter until he learned that Alya was responsible. Lucy and Bridget were both charged, for perverting the course of justice and murder respectively, and denied bail. Ultimately Lucy received the harsher sentence of twenty years while Bridget faced a fifteen year stint. Eliza was placed in care until an assessment could be made on Stu after which she began living with him and Yasmeen.
List of appearances[]
2022