Phil Gillespie was the deputy head of Bessie Street School.
In October 2018, Phil attended a meeting with Brian Packham - who began suggesting ideas for the upcoming holiday club being held at Jamila House Community Centre. One of Brian's ideas was to bring amputee Greg Kennedy in to talk to the students about living with a disability, as Brian hoped that this would help recent amputee Jack Webster feel more included. Phil agreed to Brian's ideas, provided that he took full control of running the club, to which Brian agreed.
The holiday club was a complete success due to Brian's efforts. However, when Sandra Bassett (a representative from the LEA) paid a visit, Phil took the credit for organising the event. Brian's partner Cathy Matthews was left furious by Phil's actions, but Brian informed her that he didn't care and his main focus was that the children enjoyed themselves.
By November, Phil put Brian to task working on the nativity play - secretly plotting to take the credit once again. When Phil expelled Hope Stape from school for biting a teacher, Brian finally realised that Phil was attempting to schmooze the governors and take over from Melinda Calvert as the school's head. Tyrone Dobbs and Fiz Stape complained to Brian about Hope being dropped from the school, as the pair had received no support or advice about what to do with Hope, and Brian decided to tackle Phil - pointing out that Hope's parents would go to the media.
Phil was left horrified, fearing that media coverage would be detrimental to his plans to take over as headmaster, and agreed to meet with Tyrone and Fiz. While the couple celebrated in the Rovers with Brian, Phil turned up and revealed that he had organised for Hope to attend a pupil referral unit for problem children. Tyrone and Fiz were left upset as they thought Hope was being allowed back to school. Once again Brian attempted to talk to Phil, but he put his foot down and refused Hope's reinstatement.
Over the next few weeks Phil began to purposefully demean every script that Brian created for the nativity play, ordering him to complete several rewrites as well as prepare work for all of his classes. In December, Brian collapsed in the staffroom due to exhaustion from many late nights working on the project. Instead of reducing Brian's workload, Phil accused Brian of struggling to cope and threatened him with his job.
After the final rehearsal on the day of the nativity, Phil ordered a weary Brian to go home and rest, but instead he went to the Rovers to drown his sorrows, fearing that Phil would take the credit for all of his hard work. After several drinks, he and Cathy headed back to the school and sat at the back of the hall. Phil was furious to see he had put in an appearance and asked the inebriated Brian to join him on the stage where Phil attached a harness to Brian and raised him up in the air, however the rocking motion caused Brian to vomit over the school governors sat in the front row and the audience hurriedly departed. Later in the afternoon, Jack Webster witnessed Phil bullying Brian and surreptitiously videoed the incident on his mobile phone before posting it online.
Jack's actions ultimately led to his suspension and a furious Phil returned to the Rovers to confront Brian however he was countered by David Platt, Shona Ramsey and Evelyn Plummer who all stood up for Brian, saying how much he did for the children in the community. Shona then physically ejected Phil from the pub and Brian expressed gratitude to everyone for standing by him.
List of appearances[]
2018