Joshua Halm
Published December 2, 2025 11:03am
Updated December 2, 2025 11:04am
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Brian Capron was dubious about Richard’s resurrection… (Picture: ITV)
If you’re an early 90’s millennial, like me, Richard Hillman (Brian Capron) was one of your first bogeymen. Incredibly insidious, deadly, with just a tiny sprinkling of camp delight, his reign of terror over Coronation Street is the stuff of soap legend.
‘You should’ve stayed at the party, Maxine!’ Am I right?
It felt eerily right that he make a comeback in the build up to the departure of undisputed Weatherfield royalty, Helen Worth as his ex-wife, Gail Platt
Appearing as a vision in a nightmare prior to Gail’s wedding to Jesse Chadwick (John Thomson), Richard appeared as all seemed lost and Gail’s relationship was crumbling amid the customary Platt trauma, though, according to Brian, he was initially very hesitant to return.
A ‘fatal’ return
Richard ultimately convinced Gail to go through with her wedding to Jesse (Picture: ITV)
When questioned by The Sun about his return, Capron admitted he was initially unconvinced at the thought of resurrecting his long-dead alter ego:
‘I was gobsmacked and a bit wary until I read the script. I thought, ‘How on earth can I bring the character back? It was a vision, which could have been incredibly dodgy. I always think it’s fatal to go back in a soap, like Leslie Grantham did in EastEnders as Dirty Den, so I was very dubious, but it had all the right elements.
‘It was quite funny, so it had the humour that was always around the character, but also it was slightly menacing. It was really clever.’
One aspect Brian didn’t enjoy? The fact that Richard returned the same way we left him all those years ago; soaking wet and covered in seaweed!
‘I had a wetsuit underneath my suit to keep me warm. It was quite difficult to move and I had to keep it on all day, because they kept spraying me with water until it was literally running off me!’
Brian was delighted to be reunited with Helen (Picture: ITV)
Brian previously spoke of his return and his delight at being reunited with Helen: ‘‘It was a lovely experience, they’ve written a very clever scene.
‘For me it’s got the right kind of dark humour which there always was with Richard Hillman which I love but also a slight hint of menace. I thought they balanced it perfectly.
‘I think that’s why the Hillman storyline worked out so beautifully,’ he continued. ‘I never wanted it to look like he was a really bad, horrible person so we worked very hard on making it a very loving relationship.
‘It gave a lot of dimension to the character, thanks to Helen, so it was great to be back with her for the day.’
Richard Hillman’s reign of terror
Richard had been dead for 21 years (Picture: ITV/Shutterstock)
The spectre of Richard Hillman first fell over the street when he attended the funeral of his cousin Alma Halliwell (Amanda Barrie). He struck up a relationship with Gail, creating a family he’d long craved, yet struggled to due to his infertility. Initially presenting as a charismatic and loving businessman, Gail fell hook, line and sinker.
It would turn out that ‘businessman’ was a stretch; Richard was actually a serial conman. He set his sights firmly on the elderly residents of the Street, targeting the Duckworths, Jack and Vera (Bill Tarmey and Liz Dawn) and swindling them out of their homes and savings.
His darkest act would later come when he left his business partner, Duggie Ferguson (John Bowe), to die after he injured himself on a building site, pouring a healthy dose of salt on the (fatal) wound by robbing him afterward.
Richard may well be Corrie’s most infamous villain (Picture: ITV/Shutterstock)
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While he didn’t technically murder Duggie, he definitely murdered the heck out of his ex-wife Patricia (Annabelle Apsion), when she threatened to expose him. He hit her over the head with a shovel and concealed her corpse beneath a housing development.
Turning his ire to Gail’s beloved mum, Audrey Roberts (Sue Nicholls), in his desperation for cash, he tried to convince her family that she was suffering with delusions, before then attempting to kill her by setting her house alight, though she survived.
He later attempted to murder Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire), though was caught by Maxine Peacock (Tracy Shaw) and, instead, battered her to death with a crowbar.
Richard eventually drowned (Picture: ITV/Shutterstock)
Richard planned to kill the entire family (Picture: ITV/Shutterstock)
When Gail discovered the truth, she confronted Richard who confessed, before fleeing Weatherfield. Upon his return, he abducted Gail and her kids, Sarah (Tina O’Brien) and David (Jack P Shepherd), eventually driving them into a canal so that they could all be together in death.
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Unfortunately for tricky Ricky, Gail and her kids were rescued, leaving him alone in whatever afterlife he anticipated was coming his way.
Gail, of course, learned from her experience and stopped marrying wrong’uns.
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