Laura Mangan was a sixth-form friend of Katy Harris’s who came to her and Martin Platt’s flat for what was planned to be a small get-together in November 2003. As with most teenage parties, the event started to get out of hand when too many arrived. Keen to impress, Katy had told her friends that, unlike them living with their parents, she could now do want she wanted. When Natasha Blease and Jake Gallagher started to raid the fridge for the booze contained within, Katy began to realise that she’d bitten off more than she could chew and this message was brought home when Jake and Laura headed off for the bedroom and, to appear “cool”, she was loathe to stop them. Things went too far though when Natasha pulled a bottle of scotch from a cupboard that was a present for Martin with the intention of drinking it while Candice Stowe was sick in the sink. A brief tussle over the bottle ensued with the result that it smashed on the floor, just as Martin walked in from his late shift at the hospital. He turfed her friends out, humiliating her in the process and causing the first full-blown row between the couple.
The next evening, Katy bumped into Laura at the school’s careers night when she made snide comments about Martin, causing her to defend him robustly even though the two weren’t on speaking terms at that moment in time. When Martin turned up a few moments later to support Katy, the lovers forgot their differences with each other and made up.