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Guest Character Profiles > Greg Murphy Gary Sweet

When recently qualified cop Cara Varga-Murphy found herself caught up in investigating a local crimewave, she was certain that the Linwell brothers - who had gone to prison a couple of years earlier after she reported their unsafe work practices - were somehow involved. Unfortunately, when journalist Elle Robinson returned to town, having been fired from her job in New York, she was desperate to find a big story to get her a job at online newspaper The Daily Monster, and when she saw the police report at Cara's house, she decided to expose the story. Elle justified her actions, saying that the police believed that the criminals had someone on the inside of the government, known as Jonesy, and that the public deserved to know about the corruption that was going on. However, the story, though it didn't mention any names, led the Linwells straight to Cara, who started receiving threats and it was decided that her family - estranged wife, Remi and their two sons, JJ and Dex - should be sent away from Ramsay Street.

With Remi, JJ and Dex staying with Remi's dad, Ken, in Apollo Bay, Cara became concerned when her dad, Greg, who'd been away on a solo camping trip, failed to answer his phone. With her mum and sister on the Gold Coast, Cara and her friend and colleague Andrew Rodwell decided to go to the campsite and check that everything was alright. There, they found Greg knocked out cold in his caravan with a head wound, and when he came to, he explained that he didn't know who had attacked him but they'd mentioned Cara's name. Cara decided that, following a trip to hospital, her dad was going to come home with her so that she could keep an eye on him. Greg reluctantly went along with this, but as father and daughter spent time together, the distance between them was obvious and Cara realised that it wasn't going to be easy to get back the close relationship they'd had when she was young.

With encouragement from Cara's friend, Nicolette, Greg finally decided to open up to his daughter and some of his behaviour recently. He took her out for a beer and a game of pool and told her that, having had to retire early from his job in construction due to back problems, he'd realised that he'd messed up his finances and he didn't have enough money for his retirement. Rather than ask for help, he'd started spending more time on his own and living cheaply off grid, allowing Cara's mum to maintain her lifestyle. Happy that her dad had finally been honest with her, things started to improve between them and they made plans to work on making a bird house together. But behind Cara's back, Greg was spending time with Elle, who had come to the house with an apology food hamper and been thrown out by Cara. When Greg then went to see her, he explained that he accepted Elle's apology and she was grateful, having been ostracised by most other people on the street. She offered Greg her number if he ever needed anything, and it wasn't long before they bumped into each other again and went for a coffee at The 82 tram cafe. As they left, Greg went back inside to get his jacket and it seemed that Elle had made even more enemies than she'd realised, as a car came speeding down Power Road, heading straight for her.

Greg was quick to pull Elle out of the way to safety, earning him a great deal of gratitude from her family and the police, particularly as he had miraculously remembered the make and number plate of the car. With the police looking for the car in question, they tracked it down and found a hard drive inside, believing that it could be the key piece of evidence that they were looking for. However, it turned out that the whole thing was a set-up and that Greg was actually working for the Linwells, using his closeness to Cara, and now to Elle, to find out how the investigation was going, before reporting the information back to Tania Linwell, as well as her stooges, Ricky and Jax. As an increasingly guilty Greg continued to play both sides, he soon had cause for concern when Cara told him that JJ was going to come home to finish year 12 and that his father, Felix, would be moving to Ramsay Street to keep an eye on him. As Felix was a reformed criminal himself, and had moved in similar circles to the Linwells, Greg worried that he might not be able to hide the truth for much longer.

Episodes Featured
9314, 9315, 9318, 9319, 9320, 9321

Biography by Steve

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