Our resident Coronation Street encyclopaedia, Avery, takes a deep dive into everything you need to know about Carla Connor, from her arrival on the cobbles in 2006, to her doomed relationships with Liam Connor and Tony Gordon.
Carla Connor showed up on Coronation Street on the 1st December 2006, armed with alcohol and quickly took her place in the Connor family. She had plans to start a children’s clothing business with money her and her husband Paul had set aside, and had even received her first order, but Paul had to admit he spent all the money buying Underworld with his brother Liam. Carla pushed her way into the factory and took on Kelly Crabtree to make the children’s dungarees after hours. Eventually, she also hired Becky Granger and Polish workers from the hostel where Becky lived at the time. She paid under minimum wage and had them work long hours overnight. This eventually led to a workplace accident in April 2007 that killed Kasia Barowicz, who had been working illegally with no insurance, leading Paul to cover it up to avoid Carla getting in trouble. Carla had to shut down her business after that.
Carla became friends with Leanne Battersby, who she set up with Liam. They made business plans to buy an Italian restaurant, Valandro’s, and Carla believed Leanne’s investment money was from property sales in Spain but, in fact, Leanne had been a prostitute. Carla learnt this when she was mistaken for a prostitute while at a bar with Leanne. Paul had hated Leanne and Carla suspected that her husband had used her services. She called the escort agency pretending to be Leanne in order to get evidence to confront Paul. Paul, correctly, claimed they hadn’t had sex but Carla refused to believe him and told him she wanted a divorce. In revenge, Paul arranged a date with Leanne through the escort agency and locked her in the boot of his car. When driving, he became distracted and the car was hit by a truck.
Leanne and Paul were both rushed to hospital. Leanne was largely unscathed but Paul later succumbed to his injuries, dying on the 6th January 2007. His family was devastated, especially his sister Michelle, who hadn’t reconciled with her brother after learning that he’d been drink driving when her ex, and Ryan’s father, Dean, was killed in a car accident. Paul and Liam had then moved Dean into the driver’s seat to frame him for his own death. A fact Carla revealed to her in April that year after Liam had confessed everything. Michelle had cut Liam and Paul out of her life and only reconciled with Liam after Paul’s death.
The funeral was held in Ireland and all the Connors went, leaving Hayley Cropper in charge of the factory. Carla stayed for an extended period of time while Liam returned, but he went off the rails unable to cope with the factory, his brother’s death and the break up with Leanne over her prostitution. Carla was left everything in Paul’s will and when she returned she took over the factory from a struggling Hayley as the majority owner. Liam and Carla argued over who was in control at the factory while Leanne pressured Carla over their shared ownership of the restaurant. Carla was unable to forgive Leanne for what happened with Paul, blaming her for his death, and pulled out of the restaurant leaving Leanne in the lurch.
While Liam and Carla clashed heads, feelings that had clearly been there for a long time started to surface, but neither acted on them. In September, Carla met Tony Gordon, a client of the factory. He pursued and flattered her, and she went to dinner together. Liam wasn’t happy about her moving on from Paul, and they ended up kissing during a heated argument. They agreed to ignore the kiss and not to act on their obvious feelings. Instead, Liam began to date Maria Sutherland, who fell pregnant a few weeks into their relationship, and Carla began a relationship with Tony. In November, Tony’s ex wife showed up and warned Carla off, claiming that Tony was a control freak. Carla dismissed her but Liam met up with her and found out more including that Tony was supposedly still in love with her, when he told Carla she accused him of being jealous and to prove he wasn’t, Liam ended up proposing to a pregnant Maria. The announcement of the pregnancy and engagement devastated Carla and she attempted to try and ruin their relationship.
Carla was only encouraged to do this after Liam fell from a cliff in January 2008 on a walking trip with Maria in the Lake District. A half-conscious Liam had repeatedly called for her instead of Maria. Maria heard this and resented Carla, something that was only worsened as Carla showed up with Liam’s favourite food while he recovered. The night before Liam and Maria’s wedding, Carla begged Liam not to marry Maria but he refused to admit his feelings largely due to Maria’s pregnancy. She made a last ditch attempt to stop the wedding by kissing Liam on the cheek in full view of the wedding party, causing Maria to have last minute doubts but Liam convinced Maria he loved her and they married. Carla went to the toilets to cry after the wedding where Maria confronted her and slapped her.
Before the wedding, Carla broke up with Tony but he let himself into her flat and cooked her a meal and after he was persistent, Carla agreed to date him again to take her mind off Liam. In March, Tony invited the Connors over to dinner and publicly proposed. Under pressure, Carla accepted the proposal and maintained that she wanted to marry Tony in order to make Liam jealous. In May, Maria and Liam’s baby was stillborn and they named him Paul. While grieving, Maria told Liam he was free to be with Carla and accused him of staying with her out of guilt and left him. Liam went to Carla’s flat to fight with her over ruining his relationship with Maria but ended up admitting his true feelings for Carla (author’s note: this is one of my favourite ever scenes of Carla in a relationship and I really recommend watching this, I truly believe that Liam is Carla’s first love). They slept together and were caught kissing outside their flat by their assistant, Rosie Webster who videoed them on her phone. However, after Paul’s funeral, Maria went back to Liam and Carla was left devastated. As a result, she decided that she could no longer work with Liam and forced him to sell his 40% of the factory to Tony under threat of telling Maria everything.
Carla softened towards Liam in September but she was not over him. Tom Kerrigan, his cousin, let Carla buy 25% of his and Liam’s new t-shirt business, LadRags. Liam didn’t want her involved because he had to hide it from Maria but they needed the £50,000 so went along with it. Their secret business meetings meant Carla and Liam grew closer until Carla kissed Liam, a kiss that was seen by Tony who had been shown the kiss video by Rosie recently and was gathering evidence of Carla and Liam’s affair. Tony ended up making Liam his best man to start to exact his revenge which stressed both Liam and Carla. Liam and Carla slept together again at Carla’s wedding dress fitting and, on the day of the stag and hen dos, Liam urged Carla to leave Tony and the two of them could run off together.
Carla had a horrible hen do trying to decide what to do and ended up confessing to Leanne, who Michelle had forced her to repair her friendship with her earlier on that year. Leanne encouraged her to follow her heart but as Carla was about to leave to find Liam, she learnt from Michelle that Maria was pregnant again. Carla refused to break up a family and told Liam that she didn’t love him and he was a just a replacement for Paul. While on a stag do, Tony had left his wallet in the last bar and sent Liam to get it. When Liam walked out into the road he was hit by a car being driven by Tony Gordon’s friend. It was all set up as a revenge for Liam and Carla’s affair however this was not known by anyone. Liam died on the spot and Maria, who had come to the stag do to tell Liam she was pregnant, saw the hit and run happen.
After Liam’s death, Carla cancelled the wedding and went to visit her friend in LA called Suzy in order to properly grieve Liam. The only person who knew the depth of her grief in Weatherfield was Leanne. She returned towards the end of the November and the wedding was quickly planned for the next week. Carla and Tony married but the wedding was ruined when Kevin Webster, Sally Webster’s husband, tipped guacamole down Carla’s dress drunkenly. Carla embarrassed Sally and the Websters and, in her revenge, Sally showed Maria the video of Liam and Carla kissing. Maria tried to confront Carla and Tony but they had left for their honeymoon and while they were away she worked out that Tony was responsible for Liam’s death. Carla returned shocked to find out Tony knew about the affair but dismissed Maria’s accusations that Tony was a killer.
Tony convinced Weatherfield that Maria was crazy, aided by the fact she accused him of killing a former resident of a house site he developed called Jed Stone. Jed Stone originally stood with her but disappeared on Christmas Eve 2008 when Tony and he fought and Tony believed he killed him. On Christmas Day, he learnt he didn’t and bribed him with a lot of money to make him go away. In January 2009, he brought him back to prove Maria was wrong and needed mental health help as he’d maintained ever since Maria had begun accusing him of Liam’s murder. Maria, shocked to see Jed Stone, concluded she must have been wrong about Liam’s murder and was encouraged by everyone to focus on her baby which she did as well as LadRags that Carla had gifted Maria her share in.
Carla, however, was suspicious when Tony brought Jed to Weatherfield and visited him in Wigan and discovered the strangulation marks that Tony had left on his neck. Tony explained this away as a suicide attempt but in a fight at the factory late at night, Carla pushed him and Tony revealed his part in Liam’s death, and Jed’s disappearance, after Carla agreed to stand by him. This was a lie and fearing for her own life, Carla kneed Tony in the groin and fled the factory in her car. She went to stay with Suzy in LA and left her shares of the factory in control of Paul’s friend, Luke Stone. In reality, Carla’s extended break in LA was to cover for the actress, Alison King’s, pregnancy and maternity leave.
While Carla Connor was away, it is implied that the only Weatherfield resident she kept in touch with was Leanne Battersby. Even Luke couldn’t stay in contact with her and the divorce from Tony was done from afar. However, Leanne moved to Leeds in March 2009, after Peter Barlow cheated on her while he was supposed to be in an alcohol rehabilitation programme. (Ironically, this was also to cover for the actress’, Jane Danson’s, pregnancy and maternity leave). This meant that Carla didn’t hear about everything that happened in Leanne’s absence likely including the traumatising period that I, the author, like to banish from my mind where Peter and Michelle Connor had a fling. And more importantly, Tony and Luke Strong at constant odds with each other. Tony Gordon dated hairdresser, Natasha Blakeman, while growing closer with Maria Connor by first advising her on the business side LadRags and then building her crib, walking her dog and doing most her household chores. They became friends, with Tony delivering her baby on a beach and, very soon after, confessing his feelings for her and the two of them began dating with him moving into her house, 7 Coronation Street.
Leanne, however, returned in September 2009 after Peter (and his son Simon) begged her for a second chance. She was able to report to Carla that Tony proposed to Maria in October. This was with baby Liam in attendance at Liam’s grave on the anniversary of his death. He also wanted to adopt baby Liam. Luke had also been trying to buy Carla out of her shares of the factory but his payment defaulted and, with everything going on, Carla returned to Weatherfield. She met Tony at Liam’s grave with a deal, he would sign over his part of the factory and leave Weatherfield and she wouldn’t go to the police. Tony didn’t take well to being bribed and sent Jimmy Dockerson, the man that drove the car that killed Liam, over to Carla’s flat to kill her. He physically attacked her but Carla hit him around the head with a candlestick and believed that she had killed him. Tony traded Carla her silence over Liam for the disposal of Jimmy’s body. Carla agreed and disappeared but she wasn’t aware that Jimmy had survived.
Not long after Carla left, Tony had a heart attack outside the factory and was found by Roy Cropper. Roy went with him to hospital and Tony ended up confessing to Liam’s murder before a second heart attack. Tony believed it to be his death bed but he was revived. Roy tried to persuade Tony to go to the police, unable to go himself believing himself to be in a moral quandary. Tony visited Roy and threatened him to stay away and Roy and Hayley visited the police to report the threats. Tony was questioned but there wasn’t enough evidence but the police left Maria feeling suspicious and Tony began to get increasingly angry at Roy for ruining everything and losing him his entire life. Roy was bat-watching by the canal when Tony went to find him with the intent to murder him. Tony made out to Roy that he had killed Hayley which prompted, the usually extremely pacifistic, Roy to attack Tony. Tony threw Roy in the canal with the knowledge that he couldn’t swim but, at the last minute, jumped into the canal to save him before walking into the police station, confessing to Liam’s murder as well as giving them Jimmy’s name.
Carla returned once she learned that Tony had confessed, and took over control of the factory while Maria left Weatherfield to start a new life in Ireland with Barry and Helen, Liam’s parents. Once the residents very quickly discovered Carla’s knowledge of Liam’s death, she was ostracised, especially by Michelle who was unable to forgive her. In November, Tony was told that he was to be kept in prison until his trial on the 10th January 2010 when he was found guilty. In December, Tony sent Carla a visiting order and told her how she tricked her into believing that she killed Jimmy and Carla told him to burn in hell.
In February 2010, Carla began dating Janice Battersby’s flatmate and local binman, Trevor Dean, after he caught her cleaning the factory, mistook her for a cleaner and invited her out for a drink. Underworld’s cleaner had quit so Carla had no choice but to clean as the factory girls no longer respected her after hiding the reality of Tony’s crimes. The mistake was cleared up and Trevor believed that she wouldn’t want to date him but Carla went out with him.
In 2010, the Underworld factory was struggling after having one of it’s owners prosecuted for murder and Carla having to spend a significant amount of money to buy Tony Gordon out of the factory. This was solved in March when Nick Tilsley set his sights on shares in the factory. He first charmed the factory workers to find out about the factory and how it was going before sleeping with Kelly Crabtree, and then using her to steal the accounts and client information. It meant he was able to offer far under the asking price, but with Carla in need of help, she accepted his offer and let him buy shares in the factory. However, on his first day, she forced him to fire Kelly for sharing Underworld information without her permission.
Carla’s main 2010 story-line was the iconic Siege Week with episodes every day. In late May, Tony used his cellmate, Robbie Sloan, and incited a riot to escape prison. Robbie lured both Carla and Hayley into the factory and tied them to chairs, duct taping their mouths and holding them at gunpoint. Later, Tony showed up with plans to kill Carla and Hayley in revenge for both Carla and Roy putting him in prison. Robbie had taken part in the prison break and hostage taking for money but quickly realised there is none and fought with Tony. Tony took Robbie’s gun and killed him. Maria had returned from Ireland around the same time for a visit and got caught in the siege when she was tricked into entering the factory, but managed to negotiate her own release and ran to the pub to let everyone know where Tony was, and to get the police to respond to the incident. Becky McDonald, formerly Becky Granger, was one of the first on the scene and attempted to break into the factory with a large pole to get to Hayley, her surrogate mother, but she was unable to.
Carla managed to negotiate Hayley’s release leaving her and Tony alone in the factory. Before releasing Hayley, however, Tony had doused the entire factory in petrol and he set it alight, the second that she was out of the door. He was determined that both he and Carla would die together but Carla managed to untie herself from the chair and fought with Tony. He dropped the gun in the struggle and Carla grabbed it. She shot Tony, and it gave her enough time to escape. Trevor ran under the police cordon and grabbed her as she left the factory. Meanwhile, Tony, still able to walk, walked into view of all the onlookers in the doorway before walking back into the fire, effectively taking his own life in view of Carla, Maria and everyone else. The factory exploded with Tony inside and Trevor protected Carla from the explosion. Tony and Robbie’s bodies were removed from the remnants of the factory the next day.
Carla was treated for her injuries at the hospital and interviewed by police. She still wasn’t close with Michelle so Trevor was the person to stay with Carla throughout. After being discharged, Carla ended up being taken to the station and investigated for murder over her shooting of Tony but charges are not filed in the end. Carla was traumatised, however, and Trevor declared that she needed a break. Previously, Trevor had bought tickets to the World Cup in South Africa in secret for a lot of the men on the street including Steve and Lloyd, but it was behind the backs of their girlfriends and wives and they had to give them up. Carla and Trevor ended up going away to South Africa for about a month for Carla to recover from the trauma of Tony Gordon.
Up until 2010, Carla is a main character but she’s not connected to the central and iconic families in the show: the Barlows, the Platts, the Websters and the Battersbys for example. The Connors were huge and popular but they dwindled in numbers quickly with Ryan moving to Edinburgh for University and both Paul and Liam dead she was largely isolated as a character especially by 2010 with Michelle Connor’s actress, Kym Marsh, taking increasing extended breaks from the show to focus on her music career.
Carla, however, was a hugely popular and compelling character and Alison King was much loved by the writer’s and producers. She was also loved by the press, regularly winning the awards of Best Bitch and Sexiest Female on the Soap Award scene. It is in her next period as a character that we see Carla’s ties with the street and it’s iconic families solidified and she really grow into the fixture on the street that we know her as today.