Terence "Tez" Wyatt was a criminal dealing in drugs, amongst other things, and a former boyfriend of Abi Franklin and the father of her son Seb. After Seb's birth in 2001, the couple separated and Abi brought up Seb alone, descending into a miasma of drink and drugs as she did so.
In May 2021, Seb was brutally kicked to death by Corey Brent in an unprovoked attack. Abi allowed justice to take its natural course but when Corey was acquitted in a court case for which vital forensic evidence hadn't been found, she decided to take the law into her own hands. Overwhelmed with her grief, she left her partner, Kevin Webster, and their home at 13 Coronation Street and sought Tez out, telling Kevin that she was going to stay with a cousin, Owain, in Doncaster. She obtained a handgun from Tez, purchasing it with £2,000 withdrawn from her and Kevin's joint bank account, with the intention of shooting Corey herself.
In the meantime, Kevin had allowed Abi a period on her own to come to terms with her loss and the anger she felt over the trial verdict. Losing patience and finding out from Owain that the two hadn't met since they were teenagers, he began to look for her in her old haunts. This included The Dog & Gun pub where Tez showed up while he was showing the regulars Abi's photograph. Hearing Tez referred to by name, Kevin talked to him and thought he was breaking the news to him of his son's death. Tez put on a appearance of shock and grief, claiming he had just been in prison and had not seen any of the reports in the papers. Seemingly taken in, Kevin settled down to a civilised drink with Tez, who continued to insist he knew nothing of Abi's whereabouts. As Kevin left the premises, Tez received a call from Abi, telling her that if her new partner found out what they were up to, he was dropping out of their plan.
Dissatisfied with the answers he had received, Kevin followed Tez, photographing his drug dealing activities. He used the captured images to threaten Tez that if he didn't come clean about Abi's whereabouts, he would pass it on to his probation officer. Tez lied again, saying he had glimpsed Abi two weeks before and he hadn't shown much grief at the news of his son's death as kids in his environment died frequently. Saying he now had a daughter and couldn't face going back to jail, he begged Kevin to delete the pictures.
Kevin seemed convinced by Tez's declarations, and he and Abi were reconciled when she returned, supposedly to take up her old life again but in reality to put the next stage of her plan into action. Meeting Tez, she took delivery of the handgun from him and began to stalk Corey to carry out the shooting. Disaster struck when a sinkhole and sewer collapse on Brewery Lane caused Abi to lose the gun at the point when she had a terrified Corey in her sights, and the washed-away weapon found its way into the hands of a far more brutal criminal, escaped drugs lord Harvey Gaskell, who used it to shoot and kill Natasha Blakeman in the mistaken belief that she was Leanne Battersby whose evidence had put him behind bars. The police obtained the gun, but not knowing of this, Tez visited Abi wondering why he had not read anything in the press about Corey being killed. Although at first she claimed she had changed her mind and thrown the gun in the canal, she then confessed to losing the weapon. A livid Tez told her the gun had a long history of criminal usage, some of it involving him and made the connection with the death of Natasha, threatening her with consequences if she didn't get it back.
Investigating the murder, DS Abney told Abi that forensics on the bullet fired at Natasha had shown that the gun involved was one also used in a raid some years before in which Tez had been involved, making her suspicious that Abi was the link between the two cases, especially as Corey had reported Abi for threatening to kill him. Without the gun, Abney had no firm evidence to arrest Abi. She warned Tez that the police were after him while Kevin had become aware of all that had happened and took the initiative to beg Tez not to drop Abi under a bus if the police did catch up with him. The appeal to his better nature seemed to have worked, and when the police did arrest him, he admitted to possessing the gun but claimed not to remember who he had sold it to.
List of appearances[]
2021