Debbie is unable to pay her mortgage after Andy dies so she moves in with her friend Naima Jeffery (Shreela Ghosh). In 1987 the women of Walford are targeted by a man known as the "Walford attacker". Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean), Sue Osman (Sandy Ratcliff) and Pat Wicks (Pam St Clement) all have encounters with the attacker and in April that year, Debbie is attacked too. While she is alone in the launderette, the "Walford attacker" (Colum Gallivan) attempts to assault her. Debbie manages to ward him off using self-defence, which leads to his eventual capture. Debbie's heroic act leads to her meeting Detective Terry Rich (Gary Whelan), who is investigating the case. He asks Debbie to act as his girlfriend in an under-cover stake-out being held in a restaurant, and after getting to know each other they begin dating. When Terry is transferred to another division in Crawley, Debbie decides to leave with him. They get engaged and throw a celebratory leaving party in The Queen Vic, departing in May 1987. Debbie's last words to her friends and neighbours are a paraphrasing of Rhett Butler's famous line in the 1939 film Gone With The Wind, when she says "You know love, quite frankly I don't give a damn"! Two months after leaving Walford, Debbie writes to Naima to tell her that she is pregnant; Debbie and Terry marry off-screen. Character creation and development Debbie Wilkins was one of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of EastEnders, Tony Holland and Julia Smith. The character of Debbie along with her boyfriend Andy O'Brien (Ross Davidson) were an attempt by Holland and Smith to represent the influx of upwardly mobile people that were opting to move to the usually working-class areas of the East End of London. Gentrification of the East End was on the increase in the 1980s, and in Holland's experience, the new, wealthier residents were never welcomed or truly accepted within the community, and this was what he hoped to convey on-screen with these two characters. Debbie's original character outline as written by Smith and Holland appeared in an abridged form in their book, EastEnders: The Inside Story. "Debbie and Andy are living together, they're not married — but it's a serious relationship. The mortgage is in her name... Debbie is bossy and a planner... She and her mother decided at an early stage to beat the