Vincent "Vinny" Ashford was an old mate of Pat Phelan from the building trade and a fellow conman who turned up in Weatherfield in August 2016 to tell Phelan about his flat development plan and find out whether he was interested in investing. Later that day the pair met at Rovers to discuss the financial aspects of the project. Phelan assured Vinny that he would be able to get his hands on money but it would take some time - in reality, Phelan's plan was to get Eileen Grimshaw to agree to invest £65,000 of her son Jason's money in the scheme. Vinny then revealed the truth: the flats weren't actually going to be built and his plan was just an attempt to con people out of the money they would be putting up front for deposits. Following this admittance, Phelan agreed to help Vinny put his sch