John Arnley was Toyah Battersby's lecherous tutor at Granston Technical College when she was studying an arts course and the cause of her eventual departure from Weatherfield. She started a hesitant relationship with John in early December 2002 although she was shy and reticent in giving any details about him to her flat-mates Fiz Brown and Maria Sutherland. After a week or so she invited him to join her for a Sunday lunchtime drink in the Rovers where Fiz and Maria met him for the first time and were surprised that, at forty-one years of age, he was considerably older than Toyah. A week or so later, on Christmas Day, John turned up briefly to tell Toyah that they had a chance of a week away in a friend's farmhouse in Bordeaux.