Ellie Nixon

**Eleanor "Ellie" Viola Nixon** is the criminal adoptive grandmother of Raymond Dawkins, who is the biological son of Denise Fox and Phil Mitchell.

In September 2020, Denise discovered that Raymond had been hospitalised after a car crash. She raced to Walford General where she befriended Ellie, who had been waiting outside the intensive care unit for Raymond. Denise lied to Ellie and claimed she was a family friend. Ellie's son, Jonah Dawkins, died from injuries he sustained in the car crash, so Ellie left a fragile Denise alone with Raymond to say her goodbyes to her son.

Desperate to help her own son, Denise agreed to buy Raymond some pyjamas. Ellie allowed her, but Denise soon began having doubts over how involved she was becoming with Raymond, and so did not return to the hospital. She ignored phone calls from Ellie and binned the pyjamas but quickly had a change of heart and returned to hospital the next day with a new set of pyjamas for Raymond. Ellie was unimpressed with Denise for choosing as and when she wanted to help Raymond but after seeing how determined she was to put things right, gave her another chance.

Denise then spent the whole night with Raymond, even sleeping by his bedside. Ellie grew suspicious of Denise and advised she stopped seeing Raymond. A devastated Denise went home and told Jack Branning what had happened to Raymond, and that she did not want Phil knowing anything about it, unaware that Callum Highway had given away Raymond's identity to Phil earlier in the day, as he had spoken to him about attending the car crash that hospitalised him.

Phil then showed up at Walford General and made friends with Ellie, pretending his granddaughter was in hospital and on the same ward as Raymond. Ellie fell for both Phil's lies and charms and began to lower her guard towards him, until Denise learnt from Lola Pearce that Phil was now seeing Ellie and demanded to meet-up with her. Ellie agreed to see Denise and was unhappy to learn that both she and Phil had lied to her. She got her own back by visiting Phil and claiming that Raymond needed bones pinning. Phil was determined to help his son so gave Ellie £5000 to contribute to his treatment. He only learnt of Ellie's dishonesty when he and Lola went to see Raymond at hospital and learnt from a doctor that he had been discharged.

Angry and confused by Ellie's lie, Phil and his son, Ben Mitchell, began to doubt Ellie's true identity. Callum managed to obtain vital information about Ellie and her checkered history from DI Steve Thompson at Walford Police Station, including that she was part of a criminal gang and that the car crash which killed her son was a retaliation attack on her. Callum retrieved Ellie's mobile phone number and gave it to Phil, who phoned Ellie and arranged to meet her at the Arches. Ellie appeared at their meeting place and Phil attempted to use her past against her, but was unsuccessful. Ellie then demanded £150,000 from him in exchange for Raymond. Phil was only able to scramble together £80,000, so Ellie raised the cost of regaining his son to £250,000 - vowing to phone social services and put Raymond into care if she did not get it.

Refusing to give into Ellie's blackmail, Phil was helped by Callum to devise a plan in order to regain custody of Raymond. Callum got Phil to tell Ellie that kilos of drugs had been planted in one of her four properties and a police raid was being carried out on them all. Ellie was unnerved by the information Phil disclosed to her and reluctantly signed the key documents required, giving him and Denise guardianship of Raymond, before fleeing.

## List of appearances

**Note**:
(v) denotes a voice-only appearance

**2020 (12 episodes)**

* Mon 28th Sep
* Tue 29th Sep
* Thu 8th Oct
* Tue 13th Oct
* Fri 16th Oct
* Mon 19th Oct (v)
* Fri 23rd Oct
* Mon 26th Oct