Joe Pritchard (11 May 1981 – 11 May 2010) was first introduced as the boyfriend of Mandy Maguire (Samantha Siddall). He appeared in 30 episodes overall. Joe works as an accountant, and captains a local amateur football team in Chatsworth. Joe briefly became friends with Mandy's older brother Jamie Maguire (Aaron McCusker), and took advantage of his turbulent relationship with Jamie's wife, Karen Maguire (Rebecca Atkinson), and had sex with her twice. Joe would use this incident to blackmail Karen, who was the first to suspect that Mandy was being repeatedly assaulted by him, revealing him as a sadistic sociopath. Eventually, Jamie found out about the bruises on Mandy's body, and confronted Joe at The Jockey, and beat him within an inch of his life. Sending Joe into a temporary coma. Mandy and Jamie's mother, Mimi (Tina Malone), claimed to be responsible for attacking Joe, and was sentenced to two months imprisonment. Joe recovered, and after Mandy decided to give their relationship another chance, Joe was separately visited in hospital by Karen, Jamie, Paddy (Sean Gilder), Shane (Nicky Evans), Micky (Ciarán Griffiths), and Kelly (Sally Carman). All of them threatened to kill Joe if he ever laid another hand on Mandy again. Joe was intimidated by their show of force.