john is toyah battersby's tutor at granston technical college. toyah begins a relationship with john, but is reluctant to introduce him to her flatmates fiz brown (jennie mcalpine) and maria sutherland. toyah invites john to the rovers return inn to meet fiz and maria and they are surprised to see that he is considerably older than toyah. john takes toyah to bordeaux for a holiday and they become closer. however, john become attracted to maria. knowing that fiz and toyah are out, john calls at their flat and he and maria have sex. fiz catches them and insists that maria tells toyah. john makes it clear to fiz that she will not reveal what happened as she would not want to hurt toyah. he continues to make advances towards maria, but she rejects him.