Janice Battersby - Storylines

Storylines

Janice first appears in January 1997 as a new machinist at Mike Baldwin's (Johnny Briggs garment factory "Underworld". In July 1997 she returns along with husband Les (Bruce Jones), step-daughter Leanne (Jane Danson) and daughter Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor). She is consistently rude to her various managers at the factory. She breaks up with Les after having an affair with Dennis Stringer (Charles Dale) in 2001, who is also seeing Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver) at the time. Les is so upset that he attempts suicide, and while driving him to hospital, Dennis is killed in a car crash; Les survives. Janice is left devastated by Dennis's death.

In March 2004, Janice sneaks into the storeroom at the factory for a crafty cigarette but she drops the cigarette when caretaker Harry Flagg (Iain Rogerson) locks her in, a fire starts. Just before the whole room burns down, factory manager Nick Tilsley (Adam Rickett) comes to her rescue - and as a result of the fire, she ends up in hospital and Nick is sacked by Mike.

Janice later becomes involves with police officer, Mick Hopwood. When Mick and Les get into a fight, Les is unfairly imprisoned, and Janice splits up with Mick. A later attempt at reconciliation with Les fails as a result of interference from Cilla Brown (Wendi Peters).

In the summer of 2005, Janice discovers, to her horror, that she has nits. Drunkenly, she asks friend Sean Tully (Antony Cotton) to shave her head. When she sees her bald head in the mirror, she is appalled. A couple of weeks later, she has a mud fight with resident Claire Peacock (Julia Haworth) on the Red Rec after Claire calls her a "pug faced scumbag".

In early 2006, Janice and Leanne are involved in a car accident, when Danny (Bradley Walsh) does not ask Kevin Webster (Michael Le Vell) to perform a full service on the car. They crash into Gail Platt's (Helen Worth) front wall. Since then, Janice has become increasingly angry at the Websters, leading to a rivalry with Kevin's wife Sally (Sally Dynevor), Janice's co-worker at Underworld. The rivalry comes to a head on February 27, 2006, when Janice is sacked by her employer Danny Baldwin, and shortly after, she is punched by nemesis Sally, in the middle of the Rovers Return Inn. She leaves the Street in shame.

However, it was reported in December 2005, that despite original plans for her to be written out of the series, Vicky Entwistle's contract was renewed. She leaves to stay with Toyah in London in March 2006, but returns by April 2006, telling Leanne that life in London was not any better than life in Weatherfield. She then helps Leanne as she discovers Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs)'s original will, that Leanne's boyfriend Danny does not know about.

In January 2007, Janice's heating breaks down and she calls plumber Roger Stiles (Andrew Dunn) to fix it, who turns up late. After socialising a bit, Roger asks Janice to go with him to France for a few months, which she accepts. She returns in March and Roger returns in June. She subsequently finds out that her stepdaughter Leanne is a prostitute; after everyone finds out, Janice gets into a brawl with co-worker Kelly Crabtree (Tupele Dorgu). Janice pleads with her to give up her work, but Leanne initially refuses as it is too lucrative. Eventually she admits that she can't go on with it and Leanne moves in with her. Janice and Roger reconcile, and Roger gives Leanne a loan for the restaurant she plans to open with Paul Clayton (Tom Hudson). His lack of money means he struggles to pay his rent, so he moves in with Janice. Leanne's restaurant burns down in April 2008. A few weeks later, Paul tells the police he and Leanne set the place on fire for insurance money. Janice is furious with Leanne for lying to her.

In September 2008, Janice and Leanne discover that one of the Lottery syndicate tickets for Underworld is a winner, to the tune of nearly 25,000 pounds. Initially willing to tell the other girls of the win, Janice decides to keep quiet after some persuasion from Leanne. They claim the winnings by setting up a bogus bank account in Rosie Webster's (Helen Flanagan) name. In the meanwhile, Rosie vanishes, worrying her parents Kevin and Sally. When they find out about Rosie's win, they begin to wonder if she has absconded with the cash. Unable to live with her guilty conscience, Janice eventually comes clean to Sally and Kevin on 8 October 2008. She is arrested while at work in the factory. Roger later finds out about the scam from the factory girls. This leads to his departure. He has a row with her over the scam and leaves the Street on the same day. Janice is left on the Street in tears as Roger drives away. Leanne sees her from her upstairs window and callously just shuts the blind.

In November 2008, Janice goes on trial for the scam alone, she has agreed to keep Leanne's name out of it. She receives community service, much to the annoyance of the colleagues she has betrayed. The following month, she starts her work placement at the canteen at Weatherfield General Hospital and is initially delighted to discover that her supervisor is Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire), whom she sees as a pushover. However, she is proven wrong as Emily is very strict. On 29 December 2008, she goes for a smoke break outside the hospital and meets Mike Scott (Anthony Bessick). He tells her he is in for a chest infection, downgraded from pneumonia. She tells him about her community service, and they laugh over their shared misfortune. Janice then goes back to work, but that night her friends tell her that she has been beaming the whole time she has been out with them, which suggests that she still has Mike on her mind.

Mike reappears on 30 January 2009, when he and Janice chat. However, he keels over and collapses. Janice alerts people in the hospital car park of what is happening. Nurses later tell her that Mike has died, following an operation one week earlier. Mike's wife Laura is grateful that Janice had been with him when he died. After this, Janice decides that she wants to become a nurse but is met with ridicule by her friends which makes her more determined. She is delighted when new factory boss Luke Strong (Craig Kelly) offers to send her on a first-aid course in March 2009. Janice puts her learned skills to use when young Joshua Peacock (Benjamin Beresford) collapses after swallowing a bee at the Street's summer fete. He is later rushed to hospital and recovers. Janice later tells Kelly that she does not want to be a nurse any more from the horror that Joshua could have died.

In January 2010, Trevor Dean, a local dustman, manages to provoke the ire of Janice after he refuses to empty her rubbish bin. In protest, she jumps onto the side of his bin lorry and holds on as he drives down the street. Later, the pair become friends, and after telling Trevor she is looking for a lodger, he agrees to move in with her. It is obvious that Janice is very attracted to him, however, to her disappointment he begins dating her boss Carla Connor (Alison King). Janice is disappointed when Trevor later leaves Weatherfield after breaking up with Carla.

On 6 December 2010, a tram crashes on to the cobbles, following an explosion at 'The Joinery' Bar. Janice puts her first aid training to use, helping the injured in the Rovers. She also witnesses stepdaughter Leanne's wedding to Peter Barlow (Chris Gascoyne), which takes place in hospital as he was injured in the disaster.

In January 2011, Janice meets a man called Gaz at a singles night in the Rovers who invites her to go on holiday with him. However, she is too drunk to board the flight and returns later on in the evening. At this time, Chris Gray (Will Thorp) has paid an associate to rob Janice's flat, hoping to cause trouble for a local taxi firm; he is disturbed by her entry and runs off into the night, knocking Janice to the ground and left shaken. In the weeks following the burglary, Janice becomes very nervous of living alone and eventually gives up her flat, moving in with workmate Julie Carp (Katy Cavanagh). In March 2011, with Underworld struggling to remain afloat, Janice says the wrong thing once too often, when she tries to convince her co-workers to go on strike, and Carla sacks her.

Janice is pleasantly surprised when she bumps into Trevor again. He tells her that he is only staying around for a short time as he is leaving to go on a world trip. A few days later he offers Janice the chance to go with him. With no job, and Leanne now happily married to Peter, she agrees. After saying a goodbye to Leanne, Janice's co-worker Izzy Armstrong (Cherylee Houston) spots her and tells all the locals and they all go outside to wave her off. Janice spots them coming out of the Rovers, so they drive into a puddle soaking all her friends and she shouts "Losers" as she drives off into the distance with Trevor.

In July 2011, Leanne received a phonecall from Janice to wish her on her 30th birthday, she tells Leanne that she is currently working at a hotel in France. On this day, Leanne finds out that newcomer Stella Price is her birth mother but decides not to tell Janice because she has been more of a mother to her than Stella ever was.