The following week, a badge that Lofty Holloway (Tom Watt) is wearing on his jumper catches the eye of Dr Legg (Leonard Fenton), who recognises it as one that he saw in Reg's collection of Nazi badges from the war. A few hours later, Rich arrives at The Queen Victoria where Lofty is tending bar and questions him about how he got the badge. Lofty reluctantly admits that he bought it from Mark Fowler (David Scarboro) for five pounds. When questioned by Rich, Mark insists that he found the badge on the street. However, a month into the investigation, Rich learns that Mark had obtained the badge from Nick Cotton (John Altman) and ransacked Nick's home to find the remains of Reg's collection along with other incriminating evidence. Nick then flees Walford, but is arrested the following month for Reg's murder, although he is never charged. Rich returns in 1987 to investigate the case of the 'Walford attacker', who has assaulted several female inhabitants of Albert Square. In April of that year, Debbie Wilkins (Shirley Cheriton), averts an attack using self-defence, which leads to the attacker's arrest. Rich is impressed with the way Debbie conducted herself so he asks her if she would help him out on some police business. Rich asks Debbie to go to a French restaurant with him on an undercover operation to expose French restaurants using English waiters. Debbie agrees, but whilst on their mock date they bond and when they return to The Queen Victoria they make a dinner date for the next night to a Chinese restaurant and they are soon inseparable. Debbie's flatmate, Naima Jeffery (Shreela Ghosh), seems to dislike Rich immensely, but this does not perturb Debbie, and when Rich asks her to marry him, she gleefully accepts. The following month Rich is transferred to another division in Crawley, so Debbie decides to leave Walford with him. Tony Carpenter, played by Oscar James, is a jovial character, who tries to establish a successful business and steady home for his family, but nothing he does is ever good enough for his nagging wife. Tony is one of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of "EastEnders", Tony Holland and Julia Smith. Tony was originally intended to be named Alan, and his son Kelvin Carpenter was originally named Kevin. They are the first black characters to appear in the soap. Black and Asian characters were two ethnic minorities that had previously been under-represented in British soap before "EastEnders" aired.