The Casual Vacancy characters

Appears from the start

A Pagford parish councillor, solicitor, husband, and father whose sudden death creates the vacant council seat. Raised on the Fields estate, he has worked to keep the estate within Pagford and to protect the Bellchapel addiction clinic, making him both admired and resented.

Appears from the start

A prosperous delicatessen owner and long-serving parish councillor who leads the campaign to transfer the Fields estate to nearby Yarvil. Genial and commanding in public, he treats Barry's death as a chance to secure a council majority for his plans.

Appears from the start

Howard's wife and the administrator of the parish council website. Fiercely loyal to her husband and son, she shares the Mollison family's political ambitions and closely monitors Pagford's social hierarchy.

Appears from the start

Howard and Shirley's son, a solicitor and prospective candidate for Barry's council seat. He is conventional, confident, and aligned with his parents' effort to remove responsibility for the Fields from Pagford.

Appears from the start

Miles's wife, who helps run a lingerie shop in Yarvil and feels stifled by domestic life and the Mollison family. Her sharp observations and private frustrations sit uneasily beside the respectable role expected of her in Pagford.

Appears from the start

A doctor, parish councillor, and Barry's close ally in defending the Fields and Bellchapel. Direct and energetic in public, she places demanding expectations on her family, especially her daughter Sukhvinder.

Appears from the start

Parminder's teenage daughter, a quiet student who is bullied at school and painfully conscious that she falls short of her mother's expectations. She keeps her distress hidden from both her family and school staff.

Also known as Cubby Wall

Appears from the start

A deputy headteacher at Winterdown school and one of Barry's friends. Anxious and burdened by obsessive fears about his own character, he considers standing for the vacant council seat to continue Barry's campaign.

Appears from the start

Colin's wife, a school counsellor whose calm manner makes her attentive to troubles the rest of Pagford misses. She understands her husband's anxiety and watches their son's increasingly harsh behaviour with concern.

Also known as Fats

Appears from the start

Colin and Tessa's teenage son, clever, provocative, and determined to strip away what he regards as conventional pretence. His pursuit of an idea of personal authenticity often serves as permission to humiliate other people.

Appears from the start

A teenager who fears his violent father and resents the constraints of his home. Technically capable and observant, he longs for independence and looks for weaknesses in the authority Simon exercises over the family.

Appears from the start

Andrew's father, a printworks employee whose bullying controls his wife and sons. He decides to run for the council, presenting himself publicly as a practical local man while his family knows the intimidation and dishonesty behind that image.

Appears from the start

A social worker who has moved from London to Pagford with her daughter, largely because of her relationship with Gavin Hughes. She is assigned to the Weedon family and tries to preserve a fragile improvement in Terri's care of her children.

Appears from the start

A solicitor and friend of Miles Mollison who worked with Barry Fairbrother. He is in a relationship with Kay but remains evasive about commitment and unsettled by the life she has moved to Pagford to build with him.

Appears from the start

A teenager from the Fields who rows for Winterdown and cares for her small brother Robbie amid her mother's addiction. Combative and vulnerable, she was one of the young people Barry Fairbrother tried hardest to support.

First appears in chapter 2

Krystal and Robbie's mother, whose longstanding heroin addiction has brought repeated contact with social services. Treatment at Bellchapel offers a precarious route toward stability, but her household remains exposed to exploitation and relapse.