Grace Dent, an editor of "The Guardian", described the character of Charlie as "a brilliant soap baddie", as a "philanderer and a mysoginist [sic]", and a "violent bully and a relentless liar." She opined that Charlie "ended almost every scene with a solitary moment spent smirking to himself about his latest huge fib", and that "by the time Charlie died, he was having so many smirks behind so many backs he spent many scenes pulling a face like he had a raspberry pip stuck in his dentures." Charlie has also been described as "a bona fide Coronation Street villain" and as "Greater Manchester's very own JR Ewing". The character has been opined to be "arguably the most graphic soap death".