joshua "josh" peacock was born on 8 april 2002 at weatherfield general hospital. he was the result of a one-night stand between maxine peacock (tracy shaw) and matt ramsden (stephen beckett), though was raised by maxine's former husband ashley peacock (steven arnold), and new wife claire (julia haworth), after his mother maxine is murdered by serial killer richard hillman (brian capron) when joshua is nine months old. matt had regular contact with his son, and joshua has a younger brother by ashley and claire, freddie, who was born when joshua was four. on 23 april 2010 it was announced that the peacock family had been axed from the itv soap by new producer phil collinson, and would leave in the coming months.