Police Constable Carson had her first interaction with the residents of Coronation Street when Bev Unwin reported Charlie Stubbs for forcing his way into her flat and for his threatening behaviour in July 2005. She arrived at the Rovers Return Inn public house to question Charlie. Charlie told her how Bev broke into the builder's yard and stole invoices and letters. The policewoman gave Bev a ticking off, telling her she was lucky Charlie didn't want to press charges for theft.
In August of the same year, Les Battersby went to the police station to try to claim an engagement ring in lost property as his own. Instead, he was questioned for stealing the ring by a sergeant, until Carson confirmed he was not the suspect she had previously encountered, and Les's partner Cilla Brown backed up his alibi that he was in Spain at the time of the robbery. Later in November, the constable was assigned to the case when Gail Platt called the police after her son David claimed that Jason Grimshaw attacked him. Gail's boyfriend Phil Nail interrupted and confirmed Jason's story that David had started the fight.
In March 2006, the policewoman arrived at Mike Baldwin's flat after he called the police when he got confused about his son Danny and Danny's girlfriend Leanne Battersby being there, as Mike was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. When the police arrived, Mike was confused as to why they were there. Two months later, the officer arrived at 8 Coronation Street along with a male colleague when Gail called the police about someone sending her cards from her deceased husband Richard Hillman. Gail was relieved when they took her seriously and they took the card away for tests. Gail suggested that Phil was behind the whole thing. The officer later called to tell Gail that Phil was back in the area, leaving Gail confused whether to suspect David or Phil. The female officer later attended to the scene when Fred Elliott died of a stroke on his wedding day in October. Appearing on the street again in December, the officer and her male colleague arrived to investigate Claire Peacock's allegations of the violence she heard next door between Charlie and Tracy Barlow.
Arriving at the scene in January 2007 with the same male colleague she worked with the previous year, she investigated when Tracy called the police after Charlie assaulted her stepbrother Peter. Tracy used the phone call to her advantage by playing the part of the battered wife. Later in May, the officer was part of the emergency crews who were deployed to the street when Claire was trapped inside No.4 while the house was on fire.
The police officer arrived alone at the Rovers in January 2008 to collect details on the missing Ryan Connor, who had run away after learning that Michelle was not his biological mother. The officer was present at the station in October that year when Becky Granger was taken in for questioning by corrupt officer DC Hooch.
In January 2009, she arrived at the scene of a fight between David and Gary Windass in which David was badly beaten and in September, she called round at No.11 when Eileen Grimshaw was burgled.
The officer was part of the emergency crews who were deployed to the Street in December 2010 when it was rocked by an explosion from The Joinery bar, followed by a derailed tram from the wrecked viaduct. She explained to John Stape that Charlotte Hoyle, whom he had critically injured with a hammer, had a weak pulse and called for an ambulance.
In April 2011, the policewoman asked Fiz Stape about an argument she had with John after he went missing.
PC Carson was called to the scene in February 2012 when, whilst kissing passionately in his builder's van, Jason and Rosie Webster accidentally knocked the handbrake off and rolled the vehicle into another car. The car driver appeared to be suffering from whiplash and the police officer told Jason that she would have to issue him with a fixed penalty of £60 and three points on his driving licence. In December, PC Carson and Malcolm Lagg turned up on the doorstep of 10a Coronation Street looking for Dennis Tanner on "council business". Tommy Duckworth directed them to the Rovers where Dennis was asked to identify Steve McDonald who had stolen his crossing patrol lollipop stick. The matter was swiftly dealt with when Steve agreed to return the stop sign.
In October of the following year, the officer and an unnamed male colleague called at the Rovers to question Tina McIntyre after Tracy Barlow reported her for throwing a brick through the window of Barlow's Buys. PC Carson explained that under restorative justice, if Tina agreed to pay for the damage incurred and assured the police that it was a one-off incident, then no further action would be taken against her.
When homeless girl Maddie Heath attempted to steal Sally Webster's watch from inside No.4, the officer came to the house in January 2014 to take witness statements. Sally's partner Tim Metcalfe explained that he was napping on the sofa when someone entered the property and promptly assaulted him. In order to save face, Tim explained to PC Carson that his assailant was a strong, six-foot tall male. Two months later, the officer was reacquainted with Gail and her family after an intruder gained access to No.8. Caught red-handed in the property by Gail and her daughter-in-law Kylie, the man beat a hasty retreat and drove off in his van before Kylie and onlooker Fiz could memorise the vehicle's registration number. Carson and her colleague PC Connolly were assigned to the case.
She and PC Connolly were once again paired up and accompanied social worker Selina Rowley when they visited No.13 in May 2014 following the disappearance of Ben Heath from his foster parents' home. His sister Maddie and her partner Sophie Webster subsequently hid out with Ben inside Mary Taylor's motorhome, but Maddie eventually agreed to let Ben leave when he said that he wanted to return home and move with the foster family to Devon. The police officers saw Ben and arrested Maddie and Sophie, however the pair were eventually released without charge.
In January 2017, she and PC Daniel Burke investigated a mysterious fire which gutted the bodyshop of Webster's Autocentre on Viaduct Street. The fire had been started by Andy Carver blackmailed into doing so on the orders of Pat Phelan, partly as an act of revenge against Kevin Webster, and partly to destroy an incriminating conversation about another of his scams that had been captured on the garage's CCTV. An investigation quickly revealed the arson and that the laptop with the CCTV footage was missing (stolen by Andy) and that there was no evidence that the doors had been forced - Phelan having stolen the keys from Kevin after getting him into a drunken stupor. The keys had been left by Andy on the garage floor and the police used this as evidence to arrest Kevin for arson. They questioned him but he protested his innocence. They also questioned Tyrone Dobbs who, somewhat falsely, attested to Kevin being so drunk he was unconscious both before and when the fire started. The police had no option but to release Kevin.
In August 2017, The Kabin was broken into by Zoe White and Roxy Ward, two friends of Gemma Winter. She had entertained them in Rita Tanner’s flat where, behind Gemma’s back, they had taken a photo of a post-it note which displayed the key alarm to the shop. Watching from afar afterwards, they spotted Rita leaving the premises and forgetting to lock the door and were thus able to gain entry and ransack inside. Upon finding the damage, Rita also discovered £100 missing from her handbag, forgetting once more that this time she had lent the money to Gina Seddon, all signs of an undisclosed brain tumour that was operated on later in the year. Rita suspected Gemma of the thefts and alerted the police who dispatched PC Carson to bring her in for questioning at the station. There, Gemma vehemently denied being in cohorts with her friends but refused to divulge their names. When Gina reminded Rita of her kind loan, she realised that Gemma was innocent and informed the police who let the girl go.
In December 2017 Carson was one of several officers who investigated after Anna Windass absconded while on remand for assaulting Seb Franklin. The latter charge was a frame-up perpetrated by Pat Phelan. Carson arrived on the street with a colleague to question Gary Windass and Anna’s former partner Kevin Webster about when they had last seen the lady, warning them that harbouring an escaped prisoner was a serious offence. Anna tried to flee to Scotland with her adopted daughter Faye Windass but the police caught up with them. Carson returned Faye to Gary while Anna was taken back into custody.
This incident had further ramifications in May 2018: Anna had assaulted Eileen Grimshaw who had interrupted her when she was trying to find incriminating evidence against Phelan. Found guilty of both charges, she was sentenced to jail and Faye laid the blame at her door for this development. She thus began making a series of crank calls to Eileen in an attempt to scare her. By this time, Phelan’s murders of several people had been discovered and he was thought drowned. Faye had managed to obtain a recording of his voice saying Eileen’s name on their answerphone message and she played it to her victim over the phone in her campaign. Carson interviewed a shaken Eileen about the nature of the calls and correctly deduced where the source of the voice used in the messages.
In January 2019, Carson arrested Johnny and Jenny Connor for attempting to pervert the cause of justice. Johnny had had a fling with Liz McDonald which Jenny had subsequently discovered and began drinking heavily as a result. Driving her car on Christmas Day, she was oblivious to the fact that she had knocked Liz over, putting her in hospital. A guilty Johnny took the rap, but Liz worked out from comments made by Jenny that she was the guilty party. Even under questioning, they stuck to their stories and Johnny was charged and appeared in court where Liz failed to appear as the witness for the prosecution and the trial was aborted. The lady herself fled to Spain for several months, unable to cope with the pressure any longer.
In the July, PC Carson called at 13 Coronation Street after a man named Mark Thackery was caught trying to break in. She interviewed young Jack Webster who was alone in the house at the time and had rung his father in a panic. Telling him how brave he was, she took them to the station to get a formal interview. Living in the house at the time was solicitor Paula Martin, Sophie’s lover, and she when she heard Thackery’s name she revealed that he was linked with a property group she was acting against on behalf of an environmental group and her opponents were targeting her.
In January 2020, PC Carson sat in on an interview between social worker Christine Hillier and Jade Rowan who was the daughter of the late John Stape and who had been carrying out an insidious campaign to wrest custody of her half-sister Hope from her mother Fiz. As the truth came out, Jade refused to admit to any wrong-doing in the way she had tried to set up Fiz as abusing her child, turning Hope’s mind against her. Carson advised Jade not to contact Hope while they continued their enquiries but the child herself had become obsessed with her new grown-up friend and ran away in the middle of the night to be with her. PC Carson interviewed the worried parents and acted as the family liaison officer while other officers visited Jade’s home to try and find the girl. Jade discovered the girl in North Cross Cemetery near the grave of her father and returned her.
In the May, PC Carson called with the emergency services to 6 Coronation Street where Yasmeen Metcalfe had stabbed her husband Geoff Metcalfe with a broken wine bottle in the neck. He had been subjecting her to a vicious campaign of coercive control for months while all the time presenting himself to the neighbours as just being concerned for his wife. Raging at her one evening, she had been scared enough to lash out and injure him, but such was his control over her by this time that she viewed him as the victim and herself as the perpetrator when she dialled 999. Carson comforted the dazed lady as she tried to ascertain what had happened but had no option but to take her into custody on a suspicion of assault.
In December 2021, PC Carson interviewed Summer Spellman after a smitten Max Turner made a public allegation that teacher Daniel Osbourne had made inappropriate advances towards her. Summer was herself in love with the oblivious teacher who was helping her with the best of intentions with her ambitions to gain a place at Oxford University and Max had totally misread the situation. In the meantime, Summer had visited Daniel's flat on several occasions for either a private tutorial, or to babysit his son Bertie unaware that he was in a secret relationship with Daisy Midgeley. When questioned, Summer insisted nothing had happened between the two of them but was devastated when PC Carson asked her about the identity of a woman who had been in the flat on 29th November, knowing full well that it hadn't been her.
In July 2022, Gary and Maria Connor visited the station to meet PC Carson to make a complaint about harassment that Maria was suffering. Four months before she had been elected a councillor and her initiatives had brought her into conflict with a number of interested parties, particularly refuse collector Jimmy Dixon after she had increased their workload with the introduction of a new recycling routine for glass, precipitating a strike. A deepfake pornographic video and online death threats followed but the final straw was when Maria found a tracking device that had been planted in her handbag. They were shocked to be told by Carson that tracking devices were not illegal unless they could prove that there was intent to harm, and the online threats were made from an anonymous IP address. Upon questioning, Maria was able to name Jimmy as a suspect, as well as Darren, a creepy man who had sidled up to her at a council meeting earlier that day. Carson promised that they would talk to Jimmy. The police later discovered that Jimmy was indeed behind the threats, while Darren had planted the tracking device, the two men having no connection to each other.
In October 2023 PC Carson called at Underworld after Carla Connor reported manager Stephen Reid for fraud. For many months Stephen had been trying to take control of the factory through various means, one of which was to drug Carla with LSD and make her think she was having a return of previous psychotic episodes that she had previously suffered, thereby persuading the other shareholders to hand over control to him. When Carla discovered that he had drugged her, she took the immediate step of revoking his access to the company bank account. With the net closing in on Stephen for his murders of father and son Teddy and Leo Thompkins, Stephen attempted to flee to Thailand and easily persuaded an unwitting Michael Bailey, another member of staff who had access to the bank account, to reveal his personal passcode to him. When Carla discovered the account had been emptied of his contents of £247,023.71, she found out from a hapless Michael what had occurred and called the police in. Michael could only stand open-mouthed as Carson asked him what pressure or intimidation he had been put under by Stephen and had to admit that he had freely and willingly done as asked of him. He was duly sacked by Carla.
- Unnamed since her first appearance, PC Carson was finally given a surname in Episode 7794 (3rd February 2012).
List of appearances[]
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2014 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 |