Mrs Fox was a resident of Garibaldi Street. In February 1979, Eddie Yeats, working for Len Fairclough, had fixed the slates on the roofs of two of her neighbours and noticed that her own roof needed similar work. He arranged to make the repairs and called out next morning to carry out the job. The kindly lady made him a cup of tea before he started and all seemed to go well. However Len received a visit from her angry husband later on that day, saying he had been on the roof himself two days before to fix the television ariel and had noticed nothing wrong. He demanded his money back and, as he worked as a clerk in the council's borough sales office, Len felt he had no option but to comply. He sacked Eddie for pulling a fast one but changed his mind when Eddie gave an impassioned plea that he was innocent and impressed Len with his seemingly accurate description of what he had actually seen of the state of the tiles in question.