bond with her best-friend-Rachel Hughes (Glenda McKay), whose brother, Mark, died in the plane crash and she began giving him swimming lessons. The friendship became an affair and Kathy found out when she saw them kissing on their third wedding anniversary. When Kathy found out Rachel was expecting Chris's child, she slapped Chris and threw him out of his wheelchair. The following summer, Rachel went into labor prematurely not long after discovering that her stepfather Joe Sugden (Frazer Hines) had died. She gave birth to a baby boy named "Joseph Mark" after her stepfather and brother. Chris helped Rachel raise their son and the pair started to fall out with Frank over his interference with Joseph. Later on 7 December 1995, Chris and Rachel got married – though Joe's brother Jack Sugden (Clive Hornby) and his wife Sarah (Alyson Spiro) were the only attendees due to Frank's refusal to attend the ceremony. However, the marriage lasted less than a year after Chris reverts to his position in Frank's business to the point where he becomes just as money-ambitious as his father himself – much to Rachel's disapproval. They soon divorce after Chris indirectly causes Rachel to undergo financial problems and the pair end up squabbling over their rights to Joseph. By then, Chris has become archenemies with his stepmother Kim ever since the Plane Crash aftermath. This continues to the stage where Frank divorces Kim after her affair with Kathy's new fiancé, Dave Glover (Ian Kelsey), is exposed. Dave soon dies after rescuing Kim's infant son James from a fire at Home Farm on Christmas 1996. In the new year, Kim loses everything when Frank is revealed to be James' father – not Dave as she had hoped – and she soon leaves the village under mysterious circumstances. When it later becomes apparent that Kim has died after her car and a body was identified to be her in the quarry, Chris relishes in her supposed death. However, he is left outraged when Frank gets arrested and imprisoned under the circumstances behind Kim's death. Chris also discovers that Kim has conned £350,000 in a business transaction between them and wishes he killed her for this. In 1997, it is revealed that Kim is actually alive and had faked her death in order to get revenge on Frank by implicating him under the circumstances that his role behind her supposed disappearance