Janice Battersby

Janice Bernadette Battersby (née Lee) was introduced in 1997 as was the mother of the new "common" family in the street. Janice was married to Les, living with him and daughter Leanne from his earlier marriage, and a daughter of her own, Toyah, who was the result of a fling Janice had with Ronnie Clegg when she was 16. Although not above occasional law-breaking, Janice is nowhere near as anti-social as Les.

Janice worked in the Underworld garment factory, where she was consistently rude to her various managers. She broke up with Les after beginning an affair with Dennis Stringer who was seeing Eileen Grimshaw at the time. Les was so upset that he attempted suicide, and while driving him to hospital Dennis was killed in a car crash; Les survived. In 2004, she sneaked into the storeroom for a crafty cigarette but she dropped the cigarette when Harry Flagg locked her in and a fire started. Just before the whole room burnt down, Nick Tilsley came to her rescue - and as a result of the fire, she ended up in hospital and Nick was sacked.

Janice later became involved with police officer Mick Hopwood. When Mick and Les got into a fight, Les was unfairly imprisoned, and Janice split up with Mick. A later attempt at reconciliation with Les failed as a result of interference from Cilla Brown. Meanwhile her Underworld manager from 2004 to 2006, Danny Baldwin, had his own nickname for her: "Lippy".

Biography

In the summer of 2005, Janice to her horror discovered that she had nits. Drunkenly, she asked Sean Tully to shave her head. When she saw her bald head in the mirror she was appalled. A couple of weeks later she had a mud fight with resident Claire Peacock on the Red Rec after Claire called her a "pug faced scumbag".

2006-2007: Car accident

In a storyline in early 2006, Janice and Leanne were involved in a car accident, when Danny didn't ask Kevin Webster to perform a full service on the car. They crashed into Gail Platt's front wall. Since then Janice became increasingly angry at the Websters, leading to a rivalry with Kevin's wife Sally, Janice's co-worker at Underworld. The rivalry came to a head on February 27, 2006, when Janice was sacked by her employer Danny Baldwin, and shortly after she was punched by nemesis Sally, in the middle of the Rovers Return Inn. She left the street in shame.

2007-2008: Romance with Roger Stiles

In January 2007, Janice's heating broke down and she called plumber Roger Stiles to fix it, who turned up late. After socialising somewhat, Roger asked Janice to go away with him for a few months to France, which she accepted. She returned alone in March and Roger returned in June. She found out that her step daughter Leanne was a prostitute; after everyone found out the news, Janice got into a brawl with Kelly Crabtree.

Janice and Roger reconciled, and Roger gave Leanne a loan for the restaurant she planned to open with Paul Clayton. His lack of money meant he struggled to pay his rent, so he moved in with Janice. Leanne's restaurant burnt down. A few weeks later, Paul told the police he and Leanne had set the place on fire for insurance money. Janice was furious with Leanne for lying to her.

2008-2010: Lottery scam

In September 2008, Janice and Leanne discovered that one of the Lottery syndicate tickets for Underworld was a winner, to the tune of nearly 25,000 pounds. Initially willing to tell the other girls of the win, Janice decided to keep quiet after some persuasion from Leanne. They claimed the winnings by setting up a bogus bank account in Rosie Webster's name. In the meanwhile, Rosie vanished, much to the worry of Kevin and Sally. When they found out about Rosie's win they began to wonder if she had absconded with the cash. Unable to live with her guilty conscience knowing the truth about the money, Janice eventually came clean to Sally and Kevin on 8 October 2008. She was arrested while at work in the factory. Roger later found out about the scam from the factory girls. This led to the departure of Roger, who had a row with her over the scam. He left the soap the same day. Janice was left on the street in tears as Roger drove away. Leanne saw her from her upstairs window and callously just shut the blind.

In November 2008, Janice went on trial for the scam alone, she had agreed to keep Leanne's name out of it. She received a community service sentence, much to the annoyance of the colleagues whom she had betrayed. The following month she started her work placement at the canteen at Weatherfield General Hospital and was initially delighted to discover that her supervisor was Emily Bishop, whom she saw as a pushover. However, she was proven wrong as Emily was very strict with her.

2010 onwards: Trevor Dean

In 2010, Janice welcolmed in new lodger and binman Trevor Dean. She had conflict earlier on with him due to him refusing to take her bins, but they got along. She was upset when he had interests for her boss Carla and began spending more time with her.

Janice was nearly out of work when the factory was blown up by ex-factory boss and killer Tony Gordon, but temporary worked under the viaduct with her co-workers when Nick Tilsley set up a factory there. Trevor had later ended his relationship with Carla after briefly working in the factory, and left Coronation Street to try to sort things out with his girlfriend .

During a tram crash in December 2010, Janice put her medical skills to use by helping out with the injured. In January 2011, she met a van driver named Gaz at a Rovers' singles night and had agreed to go on holiday to Tenerife with him the following day. However, she got too drunk and wasn't allowed to board the plane so had to go home. On her return she interrupted a burglar who ran out of her flat and pushed her over, which terrified Janice. She briefly stayed with Leanne and Peter Barlow at 9a Rosamund Street but after outstaying her welcome with Peter and realising that she couldn't live in the flat again, moved in with Julie Carp.

In March, Trevor had returned to the area working as a binman again. They caught up. Janice later lost her job when she mouthed off in the pub and tried to convince her friends they should strike as Carla had to reduce their hours due to problems with getting an order. Carla heard this and sacked Janice on the spot. She then began spending more time with Trevor. After he packed his job in and planned on travelling the world, and asked Janice to come with him. She did, and after a tearful goodbye to Leanne, they got in his VW and left Weatherfield, not before soaking her old colleagues by getting Trevor to speed through a puddle, soaking them.

Janice grew up on New Port Street

In June 2011, Janice was unable to attend Leanne's birthday as she was in France with Trevor, however had sent her a card. On the day of Tina McIntyre's funeral in June 2014, Leanne was called away to attend to Janice at Toyah's flat in Liverpool. While looking after the property, Janice had injured herself trying to climb through a window after locking herself out.

Quotes

"Hi ya, Sally." (First line, to Sally Webster)
"Losers!" (Final line, to her friends)