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Guest Character Profiles > Cecilia Saint Candice Alley

Cecilia Saint 2015, 2016
Children: Harrison

When Steph Scully returned to Erinsborough after a couple of years in a high-security psychiatric hospital, she quickly befriended Amy Williams and her nine-year-old son, Jimmy. But Amy's father Paul was uncomfortable with the friendship, as Steph had caused a lot of worry during her last visit to town, when she came off her medication and kidnapped Lucas and Vanessa's baby son, Patrick. Though Steph insisted that she'd received the help she needed, and she wouldn't come off her meds again, Paul was concerned about her fixation with regaining custody of her son, Charlie, who was around the same age as Jimmy. Worried that Steph might have another episode and take Jimmy this time, Paul set about driving her out of town by making her think that she was losing her mind again. Part of his plan involved paying Cecilia Saint to go to the garage where Steph was working and make a request for extra work to be done on her car, which she later denied when she went to collect the vehicle. Cecilia also took along her young son, Harrison, but called him 'Charlie' in front of Steph, and later had Harrison make a call to Steph and tell her that he missed her. Paul's plotting had the desired effect, with Steph becoming more and more worried that she was having a relapse.

By the following year, life had changed drastically for Paul, as he was no longer Erinsborough's Mayor and had lost ownership of Lassiter's hotel. Steph had learnt what he'd been doing to her, and he'd come to realise his mistake, with the pair slowly coming to a grudging truce and going into business together, reviving a run-down motel. Robinsons Motel had quickly developed a rivalry with Lassiter's and its new owners, the Quill family, with both vying to host the Erinsborough Citizen of the Year Awards. When Robinsons lost their liquor licence, and then lost out on hosting the awards at the last-minute, Paul contacted Cecilia and told her to do whatever she could to ruin the awards ceremony for Lassiter's. However, even he was left stunned when a huge explosion ripped through the hotel that day, leaving Josh Willis and Doug Willis dead, Toadie Rebecchi trapped, and Tom Quill missing. As Paul tried to contact Cecilia to find out if she was responsible for the devastation, she ignored his calls.

With the evidence piling up against Paul, he was charged and put in prison, and with Steph the only person who believed in his innocence, he asked her to track down Cecilia and speak to her. Steph was reluctant, particularly after learning that Cecilia was the same woman who Paul had paid to make her believe she was losing her mind. Eventually, however, she realised that she might be Paul's only hope, and she found Cecilia as she collected her son from the chess club at the community centre. Cecilia insisted that she had nothing to do with the explosion, and that she hadn't even been in the vicinity when it happened as her son had suffered an asthma attack and she'd taken him to hospital. With Cecilia also unwilling to talk to the police and implicate herself in any way, it seemed that Paul and Steph had hit a dead end.

Though Paul was charged with causing the explosion, he was soon released on bail, and it seemed that the police investigation was hitting constant dead ends, with no concrete proof that Paul had been responsible. Desperate to make Paul pay for killing her son and father-in-law, Terese Willis got in touch with Cecilia and asked her whether she thought that Paul was responsible. When Cecilia replied that she was certain of his guilt, Terese began formulating a plan, and asked Cecilia to go the police and lie that Paul had made a confession to her. As manager of Lassiter's Hotel, Terese offered Cecilia a job with a long contract as a way of saying thanks, and Cecilia agreed, later texting Terese to tell her that she'd completed her side of the deal, just as Terese was starting to have doubts about her dangerous, and illegal, plan.

Worried that she'd end up in prison - or that her actions would result in Paul getting away with his crimes - Terese continued with the deception, and in court, Cecilia gave her false testimony, seemingly sealing Paul's fate. But as she realised that the lies were making a mockery of everything that Josh and Doug had meant to her, Terese decided that she had to come clean, and she told the court that she had paid Cecilia to give false evidence against Paul. She was charged with perverting the course of justice, but her actions did nothing to help Paul, who was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Trivia Notes
• This character's first name was given as Cecillia for her first appearance, but was then changed to Cecilia

Tenure
7253, 7335, 7339, 7346, 7366, 7381