In 2000, Charlie, a widowed taxi driver whose wife Viv Slater died in 1999, arrived in Walford with his Mother-in-law Mo Harris, daughters Lynne, Kat, Little Mo, and Zoe, plus Lynne's boyfriend, Garry Hobbs. When Kat and Alfie receive Tommy back in April 2011, Charlie visits Kat and helps her bond with her son. Kat asks Charlie to return to Walford, but he refuses as he is in a relationship with a younger woman named Eileen, and they are getting married. Soon after, he returns to Lynne's.