Jon Lindsay

Played by: Owen Aaronovitch
Appeared: 28 May 1997 - 17 April 1998

Who would have believed that after a fateful encounter at a Weatherfield singles night in The Warwick Hotel in May 1997 Deirdre Rachid would have her life turned upside down by the machinations of the despicable Jon Lindsay.

Coming across as every inch the gentleman Lindsay would to some appear to be the perfect date. He was charming, intelligent and handsome and with excellent career prospects as an airline pilot.

It was with this facade he would woo the ever vulnerable Deirdrie into living a false life that would end with her in prison found guilty of serious charges of fraud.

However it wasn't always that way. Lindsay and Deirdrie began to see each other on a regular basis. She had been a single woman for some time now since the death of her husband Samir. He was supposedly divorced from a vindictive wife who despised him and who was now living in Devon with a bank manager.

As the weeks went by things became more serious between them. Despite the fact that Lindsay was frequently abroad thanks to his job as a long haul pilot. However wherever he was and whatever he was doing it was all so very plausible and Deirdrie or anyone else for that matter didn't suspect there could possibly be any foul play at work.

However this would all change in time. Suspicion was aroused when Ken Barlow went to Manchester Airport coincidentally on an errand for Deirdrie to pick up a Sunliners customer. As he waited in the departure lounge he spied none other than Jon Lindsay working in a tie shop

Without wishing to jump to conclusions Ken went back on a second occasion only to see Lindsay working behind the counter once again. At this point Lindsay should have been rumbled but here we saw yet more evidence of his devious mind at work. When he was eventually confronted with the evidence of his own falsehoods and lies he managed to squirm out of his tight predicament by claiming although he wasn't a pilot any longer up to a year ago he had been regularly flying the airways of the world.

He convinced Deirdrie that he had failed a standard pilot's medical on the grounds of an ear complaint which had robbed him of the job he loved so dearly. He claimed he hadn't been truthful because he felt ashamed of the work he actually did and claimed it had been a little white lie which has spiralled out of control.

Thanks to his creative licence Deirdrie took him back on the grounds that they should always be truthful with each other. It seemed all was going well with the two of them again all though Ken was always suspicious of "Captain Lindsay" from that moment onwards.

After a while the sham that was their romance began to escalate. Lindsay stressed a desire to live with Deirdrie. Apparently they couldn't live at his home because his devious ex wife had sold it from under him as part of their divorce settlement.

Hence they began looking at homes together and the true extent of his scheming began coming to the fore. Lindsay you see had been house sitting for a friend of his, a genuine pilot by the name of Ian Jenkins. With access to his friends personal effects he began steadily building upon the double life he had created for himself.

By now he was claiming that he had been promoted to the upper echelon of tie shop management and was effectively overseeing the management most of the branches in UK. This was a job that kept him away from Deirdrie a considerable amount but his absences could now be explained.

During the times he was not with Deirdrie it was revealed that Jon Lindsay was in fact living with his true wife and children. Unlike the picture he painted of a nightmarish home life with his ex wife the situation we saw could not be further from the truth.

It would seem Jon's wife and family were equally as oblivious to Deirdrie's presence as she was of theirs. On a number of occasions the two of them almost found out about each other through pure chance but somehow always managed to avoid meeting.

By December 1997 Lindsay and Deirdrie were actually living together in a rather beautiful house a short distance from Weatherfield.

There was even talk of marriage on the horizon and during a housewarming party for all Deirdrie's friends a wedding date was set.

It couldn't possibly last though and Lindsay fragile house of cards began to come apart at the seams. Deirdrie discovered that Lindsay was in fact already married and took the opportunity to get out of the relationship while she still could.

However it didn't end their because Lindsay's double life had amassed a wealth of legal complications. He had applied for a mortgage using a false identity and even had a credit in Deirdrie's name which he had let her use carte blanche.

The man had shown incredible foresight though, Perhaps even before the recriminations had began he had seen the possibility of trouble and took the time to sign the house he shared with Deirdrie into her name.

When the police finally did catch up with him his little plan let the blame fall squarely on Deirdrie's shoulders. When he was questioned by the police he had a plausible answer for every wrong doing that had occurred. He was meticulous in the way he made sure there could be no come back on him and although he received a suspended sentence from the courts for his "part" in the fraud it was Deirdrie who faced the brunt of the recriminations and actually spend time in prison for his sins.

Jon Lindsay would eventually get his comeuppance however but it would only be by sheer chance that another victim of Lindsay's would come forward after reading about Deirdrie's trial in the press.

We would discover that Lindsay had in fact duped a woman before taking his deceit as far as marriage meaning he was not only a master of fraud but a bigamist as well.

Thanks to this information Deirdrie was released from jail and walked out a free woman just in time to see the man who had so nearly destroyed her life being locked away.

Whether we have seen the last of this character remains to be seen but we do know that he will be in prison for a considerable amount of time.

Jon Lindsay proved to be one of the most popular and interesting soap villains of recent times. Although he never employed the traditional heavy handed violence of previous Coronation Street nasties like Alan Bradley and Terry Duckworth his mastery of the art of deception made him in his own way just as dangerous and sinister.

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