Jay sees them kissing, and tells Ben to admit to Abi that he loves Paul. When Phil is later sent to hospital and informed that he will be dead within 12 months unless he has a liver transplant, Ben, alongside Sharon and Jay, refuse to visit him, and Sharon has him change the locks on the house so Phil cannot enter when he is discharged. Ben comes to terms with the fact that his mother Kathy has returned to Walford after faking her own death at the hands of her husband, Gavin. He initially refuses to talks to her, disgusted at the fact that she pretended to be dead for almost ten years, but they reconcile. After Abi returns from her trip to Paris with her friend, she realises that Ben may be having an affair with Paul. Ben plans to break up with Abi, but Abi has been manipulated by Babe Smith (Annette Badland), who tells her to announce she is pregnant so that Ben will not leave her. Abi does this publicly and then plans to get pregnant for real but Ben says they cannot have sex because he thinks he may have caught an STI from a stranger, so Abi resorts to having sex with Lee Carter (Danny-Boy Hatchard) to try to get pregnant. Ben discovers he has chlamydia, and Abi also has it. She later fakes a miscarriage in an attempt to end her pregnancy lie, but when she upsets Babe, Babe writes Ben a letter revealing the truth. The letter is read by Louise (now played by Tilly Keeper), who has returned, and to keep her from showing it to Ben, Abi allows her to use Phil's credit card. When Ben finds the card, he confronts Abi, but she believes he found the letter so inadvertently reveals she was never pregnant and says that Louise was blackmailing her. Ben takes revenge on Louise in The Queen Vic by putting her head in the toilet. He then seduces Abi and takes her top off, but then drags her into the main bar of the pub, revealing via a karaoke microphone that she invented the pregnancy. Ben then resumes his relationship with Paul with the support of most of his friends and family. Following an agreement with Les and Pam, who make plans to retire and leave Walford, Ben and Paul make arrangements to become the new managers of Coker and Sons. In celebration, they spend a night out together, and are not seen again the next day. Ben's family are alerted by the police that a dead young man whom they believe to be Ben has been found, having been involved in a fight, but upon inspection, the victim is revealed to be Paul.