When Les Battersby was facing an upcoming trial for assaulting PC Mick Hopwood (a charge of which, for once, he was totally innocent) he and Kirk Sutherland went round the Street asking various residents to act as a character witness. Unfortunately, six years of experiencing Les's true nature meant that there were no volunteers. Les and Kirk hatched a typically hopeless plan in which they would encounter a potentially violent man in the Rovers and Les would not react in his usual style to the provocation but would instead "turn the other cheek".