Characters / Unforgotten

The Character Sheet for Unforgotten.

Police

DCI Cassie Stuart

DCI Cassandra 'Cassie' Stuart

Played By: Nicola Walker

• Alone Among the Couples: In series 3, Sunny is happy in his new relationship, her father is nearing proposing to his current girlfriend and her son Adam is off in America with his girlfriend, leaving Cassie struggling with loneliness. It gets better, though.
• Broken Ace: At the end of series 3 and in series 4.
• Daddy's Girl: Cassie has a very close and loving relationship with her father, Martin. In fact she still lives with him.
  • Subverted in Series 4, when she finds out he has dementia and is doing her best to protect him but isn't able to know if she's doing so due to her dislike of his girlfriend.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her: She is hit by a joyrider who was not connected to the case she was working and died of her injuries without getting to patch things up with her beloved father.
• Empty Nest: Both of Cassie's children have left home and according to her only see her when they want money or laundry doing. When Adam, Cassie's son, comes to visit however he asks for neither and she's overjoyed when he's home.
• The Heart: Cassie argues the importance of solving cold cases because if anyone knew the victims or even if anyone remembers the people that knew them society has an obligation to help.
  • During the Jimmy Sullivan case Cassie kept calling Maureen, the victim's mother, even when she had no new breaks in the case, just to talk to her.
• The Hero Dies: Cassie dies at the end of Series 4.
• Heroic BSoD: Cassie goes through one after Pete's death and learning that Tim Finch is a serial killer back to back in a very short period of time.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has one when she realises she left the police file on Peter Carr behind in a cafe and again later after he's stabbed as a result of the file's contents going public and he ends up dying. Cue Cassie weeping in a toilet cubicle over the mess up.
• My Greatest Failure: She feels this way about Pete Carr's death.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Sunny, after they decide they're Better as Friends after a brief kiss.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Subverted. Cassie wants to retire between series 3 and 4, but she isn't able to because she hasn't served her 30 years.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Is much more bad-tempered, snappy and angry in Series 4 due to her being unable to retire and the aftereffects of her Heroic BSoD at the end of Series 3.

DI Sunny Khan

DI Sunil 'Sunny' Khan

Played By: Sanjeev Bhaskar

• Affectionate Nickname: Sunny's name is Sunil but everyone calls him Sunny.
• Family Man: Often seen talking with Cassie about his daughters, often asking for advice on some problem he's having with them.
• Henpecked Husband: Ex-husband to his high-maintenance wife.
• Parents as People: Sunny struggles to be a good father to his two daughters often not understanding them but comes across mostly as a good parent.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Cassie.
• Rank Up: Refereed to as Detective Sergeant in all the series' credits but is more commonly called Detective Inspector and this is seen on his warrant card in series 3.
• Second Love: Finds one in Sal in series 3.

Series 1

Jimmy Sullivan

James 'Jimmy' Sullivan

Played By: Harley Alexander-Sule

• Abusive Parents: Thomas, Jimmy's father, was violent alcoholic and used to beat both his wife and child. Maureen his mother was also an alcoholic but loved her son dearly and only drank to cope with her abuse.
• Liverpool: In the voice over we hear of Jimmy's letters he had a very thick Scouse accent.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Jimmy worked as a male prostitute to earn money to send back to his mother so she could escape his abusive father.

Eric Slater

Eric Slater

Played By: Tom Courtenay

• Bungled Suicide: Didn't quite manage to kill himself in the car crash he causes but he did end up paralysing himself.
• Gayngst: Eric was a gay man during the time when homosexuality was still illegal in England and was torn up about it, wishing that he wasn't.
• Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: To Claire, after she killed Jimmy.
• The Penance: While the car crash that disabled him and put him in his wheelchair was inflicted upon himself by himself, Eric sees the chair as a more fitting punishment for his perceived role in Jimmy's death.

Phillip Cross

Frank Phillip Cross

Played By: Trevor Eve

• Beard of Evil: Has a prominent white beard and has a particularly questionable past.
• Driven to Suicide: Ends series 1 by hanging himself in his prison cell.
• Happily Married: Before the Sullivan case Phillip appears to be happily married to his wife and has good relationships with his children, particularly his daughter Bella.
• London Gangster: Phillip worked as a debt collector for a prominent family, the Fenwicks. His speciality was apparently breaking the joints in people's fingers with bolt cutters and nailing their hands down.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: As a former Eastender with a strong accent turned business magnate, Phillip evokes Lord Alan Sugar.
• Rags to Riches: Has rough beginning in the East End of London but became a successful business magnate later on in life, successful enough to earn himself a knighthood.

Father Greaves

Father Robert Greaves

Played By: Bernard Hill

• Dirty Old Man: Engaged in a several weeks long relationships with a woman he claimed was seventeen but was actually fifteen.
• Pedophile Priest: Had a "relationship" with a fifteen-year-old girl.

Lizzie Wilton

Lizzie Wilton

Played By: Ruth Sheen

• Abusive Parents: After her mother's death, Lizzie's relationship with her father turned abusive. She never specifies if the abuse was emotional, physical, or sexual.
• Character Development: In-universe. Lizzie was a member of the National Front, a far-right political group, when she was younger, during which she took part in various hate crimes. She soon matured when she was outside the influence of her boyfriend and marries a black man, has a child with him, helps found a football team for young people of colour and mentors a young black teen to help him with his education.

Claire Slater

Claire Slater

Played By: Gemma Jones

• Clingy Jealous Girl: She killed Jimmy because Eric cheated on her with him.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Horrifyingly inverted. Claire's son knows all about her murder of Jimmy and seems prepared to punish her for it.
• Evil Old Folks / Retired Monster: Claire killed Jimmy, but she is no longer dangerous due to her dementia.
• Sanity Slippage: After giving birth to both of her children Claire displayed symptoms of postpartum psychosis and Eric says even before this she wasn't well mentally. Later in life Claire develops dementia.

Series 2

David Walker

David Walker

Played By: Daniel Gosling

• Asshole Victim: Once you learn what Walker did in the past you quickly don't feel sorry about him being murdered. Sunny Lampshades this.
• Bondage Is Bad: Enjoyed sex of the rougher variety and is a complete monster.
• Posthumous Character: He is linked to most of the misdeeds of the series, even ones that initially appear not to be about him, such as Colin being accused of rape.
• Rape as Backstory: Walker was sexually abused by a teacher when he was in primary school.
  • This becomes a point of contention between Cassie and Sunny when it's revealed Walker went on to become and abuser himself. The former says she can understand how abuse like that can mess someone up but the latter says anyone who endures abuse like that should know how it feels and should never go on to inflict it.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Sexually assaulted a girl twice when she was twelve and raped Sara Mahmoud when she was thirteen.

Colin Osborne

Colin Osborne

Played By: Mark Bonnar

• Dark and Troubled Past: Sexually assaulted by a family friend for around six months of time when he was only nine-years-old. Particular Nightmare Fuel mentions goes to how he describes the abuse to Cassie:
  Colin: He did things...which actually physically damaged me for life. [beat] Because a 48-year-old man is not meant to put himself inside a nine-year-old boy.
• Depraved Bisexual: Subverted. It appears to be played straight with the revelation that he raped a woman during a staff party (as he's currently married to a man), but he didn't do it.
• Family Man: David Walker's murder case muddies the water of his and Simon's adoption of a young girl, Flora.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Simon mentions that Colin has a particularly volatile temper but seems to have gotten to grips with managing it. However, we do see it slip through a few times.
• Rape and Switch: Played with. Colin is a gay man who was raped by a family friend as a child, but he actually suggests that this left him in more denial about his sexuality.
• Straight Gay: Colin is happily married to his husband Simon but shows nothing in the way of overt stereotypically "gay" behaviour.

Marion Kelsey

Marion Kelsey

Played By: Rosie Cavaliero

• Abusive Parents: Marion's father began molesting her in her early teens before out and out raping her. Her mother, while not abusive herself, was complicit in that Marion told her of the abuse but she did little to nothing to stop it.
• Ambiguous Disorder: It's mentioned by Tony, Marion's husband, that she should go back onto some medication and she herself makes reference to her family thinking she's "nuts".
• Cain and Abel: Seen as the Cain to her sister's Abel by her sister, husband and mother. Though when the cause behind her anger and other issues comes to light this becomes much less apparent.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: A dark version between she and her sister, who seems to have everything Marion doesn't, but it gets happily settled when her sister finds out about Marion's prior rape and freaks out.
• Inverse Law of Fertility: Is seen talking with a fertility doctor and appears desperate for children but at her age the odds aren't good.
• Nurse with Good Intentions: Marion isn't bad nurse at all but she oversteps the boundaries she has with one of patients out of care.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She is extremely abrasive to anyone trying to help her, as a result of her deep sadness over being sexually abused by her father.

Sara Mahmoud

Sara Mahmoud

Played By: Badria Timimi

• Dark and Troubled Past: After her mother died, Sara began acting out and ran away from home at thirteen and some time later was subject to sexual abuse at the hands of David Walker.
• Happily Married: Enjoys a warm and loving marriage to her husband Hassan and the two have three sons together.
• Islamic Dress: Sara wears a hijab but like many Muslim women doesn't wear one when at home with only her family around.
• Missing Mom: The death of her mother in a car crash is what steered Sara down the path that lead to her abuse.
• Old Shame: In-universe, her past as a prostitute.
• Promiscuity After Rape: In the past, after David sexually abused her.

DI Tessa Nixon

DI Tessa Nixon

Played By: Lorraine Ashbourne

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Initially comes off as a straight copper who Cassie tries to find common ground with over this. Eventually it's revealed she knew of her husband's abuse and did nothing.
• My Greatest Failure: Admits that she was wrong to overlook the fact that David raped Sara.

Jason Walker

Jason Walker

Played By: Will Brown

• Disappeared Dad: The disappearance of his father has left him angst-ridden.
• Happily Failed Suicide: He is on the brink of committing suicide when his roommate asks him out.

Series 3

Hayley Reid

Hayley Reid

Played By: Bronagh Waugh

• Always Identical Twins: She and her sister.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Hayley is kind, sweet, gentle...

Chris Lowe

Chris Lowe

Played By: James Fleet

• Ambiguous Disorder: Averted. He outright says that he has bipolar disorder but it went diagnosed around the time of Hayley Reid's death.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Of the four Finchley friends, Chris is the kindest and most innocent. He ends the series with his new wife and stepson in their flat, with a baby on the way, and still close to James.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Chris was a loving, responsible father, who was unfairly accused of being a child pornographer and so lost his wife and daughter, who he has never seen again.
• Insane Equals Violent: Played with before being subverted. Chris had a meltdown the night of Hayley Reed's death due to his undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which causes him to come under suspicion, but he had nothing to do with it.
• Mad Artist: A bipolar artist.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Hasn't recovered from losing his daughter (after he was falsely accused of viewing child pornography), but he manages to eventually enter a stable and loving relationship with a woman who has a young son.
• Renaissance Man: A downplayed example - Chris was both a skilled advertiser and extremely successful businessman, and is also a talented artist.
• Starving Artist: He's a brilliant artist and highly creative man who lives in a caravan and never has enough money. Justified, though - he was previously a respected advertiser who was unfairly accused of child pornography charges and so dropped out of society and lost his business. This experience also left him greatly distrustful of bank accounts.

James Hollis

James Hollis

Played By: Kevin [Mc Nally=]

• Famed In-Story: As a TV host.
• Knight Templar Parent: Although unusually not a positive version, he covers up most of his son's indiscretions because he really believes he could be a murderer.
• It's All About Me: Notably when his wife leaves home, he throws Pete out and indirectly causes his death.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: James's career (but not his personal life) is clearly reminiscent of Jeremy Paxman.
• Parents as People: James is an extremely flawed parent, who contributed to (but perhaps not caused) Elliott's troubles, but he fundamentally loves Elliott and tries to help him.
• Red Herring: James's sexual proclivities include sex in the woods and a possible rape fantasy, but they have nothing to do with Hayley Reid's death.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: His relationship with his son Elliott.

Tim Finch

Tim Finch

Played By: Alex Jennings

• Abusive Parents: Finch mentions a father who could be violent occasionally.
• Big Bad Friend: He takes care of his friends, such as giving Chris money and constantly looking after him, but he is a serial rapist and murderer who admits he would feel nothing if his friends weren't in his life.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Finch has no problem setting his friends up for multiple crimes he committed, while giving them all - especially Chris - help and money.
• Expy: He's a lot like Martin Vanger, from the Millennium Trilogy books. His monologue near the end is almost identical.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Discussed. Whilst he agrees that he feels something towards his daughters it is uncertain if it's outright love.
• False Friend: In contrast to James and Chris, Finch feels nothing for his friends. Despite saying to James that he loved him, Finch readily said it would mean nothing if he never saw them again.
• Faux Affably Evil: A serial killer who appears polite and calm while being a despicable murderer and rapist of teen girls.
• Foil: To Cassie. Both are very smart individuals, Finch a doctor and Cassie a DCI, but while Cassie is The Heart and full of love, empathy and emotion, Finch is cold, unfeeling and a rancid hebephile and murderer.
• Mad Doctor: Realistically, but he's a murderer and rapist.
• Murderers Are Rapists: Tim primarily considers himself a rapist, saying that he only kills his victims to stop them from talking.
• Nature vs. Nurture: He brings up the argument in his interrogation stating that it must be an interaction between the two but wonders why he is a serial killer but his sister isn't.
• Serial Rapist: Not only did Finch rape and murder Hayley Reid he also raped and murdered Alison Baldwin and two other teenage girls, Natasha and Victoria. His murder of them lends itself towards Murderers Are Rapists - he says he only killed them to cover his crimes.
• The Sociopath: Finch refers to himself as a textbook psychopath listing a lack of empathy, above average intelligence and superficial charm. The chilling way in which he recounts Hayley's rape and murder makes him seem almost bored.
  Sunny: Whatever he's doing I think that's the closest thing to evil I've ever witnessed.
• Villain with Good Publicity: A highly respected GP who is abusive to his patients, murderous, and sexually sadistic.
• Wine Is Classy: Enough so that he's confident in confronting a waitress over a corked wine.

Peter Carr

Peter Carr

Played By: Neil Morrissey

• Affably Evil: Unlike Finch, the Faux Affably Evil villain of the series, Pete behaves in a way that is often reprehensible - such as stealing from vulnerable people - but he genuinely loves his family and wants to be better than he is.
• Con Man: Although he doesn't see himself as one. Carr takes advantage of opportunities that arise rather than planning to scam people.
• Death Equals Redemption: Before being stabbed to death by a vigilante, he shows his softer side.
• Henpecked Husband: Due to his family's financial problems.
• Lovable Rogue: Deconstructed - he comes across as one on the surface and might even see himself as one but the reality is someone behaving like him when he has family responsibilities is grossly irresponsible.
• Obliviously Evil: Carr's wife lampshades that Carr's moral compass is so skewed that he struggles to really understand how his financial crimes are wrong, as shown by how he justified stealing from the disabled by the fact it was supposed to only be a "temporary" borrowing. Carr has limits though: he knows how disgusting robbing a church of its silverware was.
• Red Herring: Ultimately had nothing to do with Hayley's death despite all his crimes major and minor coming out.

Series 4

Matthew Walsh

Matthew Walsh

Played by: James Craze

• Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel too sorry for the guy when you find out what he got up to prior to his death: not only did he sexually assault Fiona in a pub and then beat the shit out of Ram for trying to come to her defence, he also murdered Dean Barton's beloved brother.
• Karmic Death: He was stabbed in the head with a pen by Dean Barton, mirroring the way he stabbed Dean's brother in the head almost a year previously. However, considering he'd already suffered a serious head injury, it's a question of whether that actually killed him or merely sped up the process.

Liz Baildon

Liz Baildon

Played by: Susan Lynch

• Abusive Parents: Her mother is extremely unpleasant to her, although it's obvious she knows something bad about Liz. It's implied that this knowledge drives her mother's cruelty and callousness.
  • However when Liz finally stands up to her mother she implies that her mother has always been abusive to her, and her mother's knowledge of Liz's involvement in Matthew Walsh's death and covering up for Fiona's drunk driving just made things worse rather than being the thing that caused the abuse.
• Daddy's Girl: Her mother was emotionally abusive to her, but she mentions being very close to her father, and she confided in him about Matthew Walsh. Although her mother still torments her about her father.
• The Dog Bites Back: She eventually snaps and tells her mother to 'shut the fuck up' before telling her, eerily calmly, that if she keeps behaving the way she is, then she has no qualms about coming into her room and suffocating her to death.
• Dirty Cop: It appears numerous times that she might be this. She is, but not of her own volition.
• Graceful Loser: When she's eventually caught, she shows genuine remorse and apologises for having brought the police into disrepute.
• Oxbridge: She is famously considered to be the cleverest suspect, and she attended Balliol College, Oxford. On top of that, she is a police officer in Cambridge just to underline the Oxbridge connection.
• Pet the Dog: After Eugenia's clumsy attempt at blackmailing her, Liz actually behaves gracefully, tells Eugenia that she knows she deserves more money, and pays her what she asked.
• Pride Before a Fall: When we first see Liz, she's going for a promotion to be the head of the police force and she attacks a mugger on the street. We later learn she is nowhere near as clean as this makes her appear.
• Psycho Lesbian: Deconstructed. Liz has none of the stereotypical qualities of being a standard example (she's very calm, collected, and intelligent), but her relationship with Fiona, Fiona's blackmail, and her ongoing feelings for her makes her act more erratically and to break the law multiple times.

Fiona Grayson

Fiona Grayson

Played by: Liz White

• Addled Addict: She was one, mentioning that she can't remember years of her life due to alcohol abuse.
• The Alcoholic: Formerly. It resulted in her accidentally killing a child in a car accident.
• All for Nothing: She notes that her own father didn't want to be a police officer, yet she became a police officer in a misplaced attempt to impress him.
• Blackmail: Blackmails Liz into losing the blood samples for her drunk driving incident which killed a child by threatening to reveal her involvement in the death of Matthew Walsh.
• Broken Bird: A past of addiction, sexual assault, and the death of her father has left her very worse for wear.
• Informed Attractiveness: Liz and her brother-in-law both comment on her beauty, with Liz not over her decades after their breakup, and almost everybody seems to want her.
• Never My Fault: Played with. Although Fiona does feel guilty, she's also willing to blackmail and manipulate Liz to avoid public fault.
• Psycho Psychologist: Downplayed, but with a strong side of The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes. Fiona is a genuinely good therapist, but she is defective in her personal life and a criminal.
• Sanity Slippage: A mild example, but over the course of the series, Fiona appears to be getting more and more unstable until she's finally hysterically babbling to her terrified stepchildren about all the screw-ups in her life so far. By the end of the final episode, she's much calmer and appears to have composed herself.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: She was sexually assaulted by Matthew Walsh, a source of much desire when she was at police college, and her brother-in-law offers her Sex for Services in order to hide her Dark and Troubled Past.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: In the past. She joined the police solely to impress her father. It didn't end well.

Dean Barton

Dean Barton

Played by: Andy Nyman

• Abusive Parents: He was brutally beaten up by his father and two of his brothers when he joined the police force and he describes his family as very violent.
• Affably Evil: Involved in drug smuggling and also responsible for Matthew Walsh's death, but is a genuinely loving family man and feels immense regret over his past actions.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He is a genuinely nice family man who also murdered Matthew Walsh.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: He was brutally beaten up and put in hospital by his father and two of his brothers and was raised in a violent criminal family, but he is an adoring father to the point that his wife says he makes her feel inadequate.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Apparently used to work as a smuggler. Not only that, his name was originally Dean Quinn, and was part of a family heavily involved in crime. He was also effectively disowned after his family found out he was in training to become a police officer. The only member of his family who supported him through this, his brother Stephen, ended up being killed by Matthew Walsh, resulting in Dean murdering Walsh in revenge.
• Heel Face Revolving Turn: He underwent a Heel–Face Turn to join the police, only to turn back after seeing Matthew Walsh. He then went back to his nonviolent past self.
• Sympathetic Murderer: He killed Walsh, but only because Walsh had murdered his brother in a gangland attack for no good reason.
• White Sheep: Deconstructed. He was this to the rest of his criminal family, until his brother was murdered and he killed Matthew Walsh for being the killer. He explicitly says that the murder made him realize he could never get out.

DCI Ram Sidhu

Ram Sidhu

Played by: Phaldut Sharma

• Alas, Poor Villain: He's a corrupt cop and an all-round jerk, but as Sunny is arresting him, he tells the truth and says that he could tell he was going to be scapegoated by the other officers - which is what happens when the police catch up with him. It doesn't outweigh his other crimes - like the drug smuggling or general dickishness - but it gives him a moment of genuine sympathy.
• Cowboy Cop: Has a long list of crimes to his name despite his status as a DCI. He's been able to get out of consequences for them by playing the race card.
• Even Evil Has Standards: According to himself at least, he's the only one who wanted to call for an ambulance for Matthew Walsh the night Walsh was killed. (Although Dean confirms his first instinct was to call an ambulance.)
• Everything Is Racist: Has a habit of playing the race card in order to escape consequences for his bad actions.
• Jerkass: Smug, arrogant, corrupt and just plain rude.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As horrible as Ram is, he's also totally correct (and sympathetic) when he points out that he knew he would be scapegoated — and, indeed, that's exactly what happened when Cassie and Sunny arrested Fiona and Liz.
• Not Me This Time: He committed crimes including drug smuggling and disposing of Walsh's body, but he genuinely didn't kill Matthew Walsh, and wanted to call the police. And he did it because he knew he would be scapegoated.
• The Scapegoat: He claims to have only covered up Walsh's murder because he knew that he would be scapegoated — and, indeed, that's what happens when Liz and Fiona get taken in.
• Shadow Archetype: For Sunny. Both are Indian police officers, but Ram is a Cowboy Cop who can't play well with others and isn't sure if he wants to have kids, while Sunny is a loving father and pacifist on top of being a good partner to Cassie.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: His father won't even look at him, let alone talk to him or tell him he's proud. A surprisingly heartbreaking scene late in the series shows Ram quietly begging his dad to just look at him and acknowledge him for once, and he implies that part of his Jerkass nature is down to a lack of love and affection from his dad.

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