Harriet Lythgoe was a social worker who called at 9 Coronation Street in January 2013 and with the police's assistance forcibly removed Ruby Soames from the care of her father Tyrone Dobbs. For months, Tyrone had been suffering physical abuse and violence from his girlfriend Kirsty Soames but he was powerless in the face of the fact that Kirsty had not registered his name as father of their baby. Knowing full well Kirsty's tragic history of cruelty at the hands of her own father and fearful that she would treat the child in the same way, he hatched a plan to marry her to give him parental rights and then take the baby from her. The plan fell apart when Kirsty found out what he was up to from texts on a mobile phone and, in an argument, she fell down the stairs.