Simon Barlow

Simon Barlow is a character in Coronation Street. Portrayed mostly as a decent lad with family issues (like his father Peter Barlow being an alcoholic and letting him down) he took on a role as the antagonist in the 2015 series when he began abusing his step-mother Leanne Tilsley. He is played by Alex Bain.

Simon originally appeared as a baby in 2003, before returning in 2008 as a 5-year old now under the care of alcoholic father Peter Barlow after the death of Simon's mother Lucy. Peter took Simon to Coronation Street for help and support from his parents Ken and Deirdre. Simon then grew close to Peter's new girlfriend Leanne Battersby whom worked at Peter's new bookies.

Simon was often portrayed as cheeky, intelligent and a decent young lad despite what he had been going through. Despite his father's problems, Simon still loved him. However over the course of Simon's time in the show he began to grow nastier as his life got more and more tragic and suffered a lot of losses. In 2014 he was devastated when his babysitter Tina McIntyre was murdered and that she had also been having an affair with Peter. Peter was wrongfully accused of killing her (when it was in fact Rob Donovan) and Simon hated his father for "killing" her. However when Rob was outed as the culprit Simon felt guilty, especially as Peter decided to leave Coronation Street (although he assured Simon it wasn't because of him, but because Peter was unable to face the residents for his deceit).

In 2015 Simon suffered more losses in his life. Leanne's boyfriend Kal Nazir perished in a fire when rescuing Simon's cousin Amy Barlow. In frustration he threw a remote control at Leanne's face, and was then marched round to his grandad Ken's place so she could cool off for a while. Simon apologised to Leanne and she decided to forget all about it.

When Simon's grandmother Deirdre died, his mood fouled even more and he launched an attack on Leanne when she refused to let him go out and called her ugly. When Simon, along with Leanne and Liz McDonald were held hostage by Liz's boyfriend Dan Jones (whom was a client Leanne knew when she was a prostitute) the man revealed to Simon about Leanne being a prostitute in the past. Although Dan was arrested, Simon was disgusted with Leanne and when she tried to explain herself he slapped her across the face.