Richard Hillman
Richard Hillman
13.12.1974 - 27.06.2009 (34 years)
Richard Hillman is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera, Coronation Street, played by Brian Capron. He first appeared on 20 June 2001 and became the show's main antagonist until his departure on 14 March 2003. The character's story arc began with Richard appearing in Weatherfield for the funeral of his late cousin, Alma Baldwin (Amanda Barrie) — following her recent death from cervical cancer a couple days ago. He thereupon meets Alma's closest friend, Gail Platt (Helen Worth), and they proceeded to establish a relationship that ultimately led to the pair getting married a year later on 26 July 2002. By that year, however, it had transpired that Richard withholds a homicidal streak — which is thoroughly explored outside his marriage with Gail as he strives to maintain his financially-bankrupt property company, "Kellett Holdings". This involves Richard leaving his business partner Duggie Ferguson (John Bowe) to die after the latter ends up having a fatal accident; murdering his ex-wife Patricia (Annabelle Apsion) with a shovel when she attempts to expose his fraudulent dealings; clashing with Gail's former husband Martin (Sean Wilson) after upsetting their young son, David (Jack P. Shepherd), for going on his laptop without permission; kidnapping local gossip Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden) to stop him from investigating the truth about Kellett Holdings; swindling fellow couple Jack (Bill Tarmey) and Vera Duckworth (Liz Dawn) from their financial investment; attempting to kill his mother-in-law Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls) by setting her house on fire, after which he exploits his failure in doing so with the conclusion that she has Alzheimer's disease; becoming enemies with Audrey's companion Archie Shuttleworth (Roy Hudd) in light of his unsuccessful attempt to kill her; and planning to murder Norris' roommate Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) with a crowbar in order to extract her house as a result of his equity release scheme that Emily signed with his company — the result of which leads to Richard instead end up killing Duggie's barlady, Maxine Peacock (Tracy Shaw), and later framing his stepdaughter's ex-boyfriend Aiden Critchley (Dean Ashton) for her murder. Eventually, Richard confessed his crimes to Gail in a two-hander episode on 24 February 2003. He seemingly departs Weatherfield for good after Gail ends their marriage and his criminal activities subsequently become public knowledge, but Richard returns weeks later with the intent on killing himself and his stepfamily. He abducts Gail and David, along with stepdaughter Sarah-Louise (Tina O'Brien) and her infant daughter Bethany, from their house and attempts to kill them in the garage. However, after Audrey and Martin discover his familicide plan, Richard drives off with his stepfamily and ends up plunging their car into a canal — but they survived whilst he himself drowned and was later pronounced dead after his body, which the police would recover from the canal, was identified by Gail and Audrey at the canal. He has been rated one of the best soap villains of all time and in the programme itself, alongside the likes of Alan Bradley (Mark Eden) and Pat Phelan (Connor McIntyre).