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 ROS COULSON
Played by Sigrid Thornson
Full Name: Roslyn Louise Coulson
First Ep: 063
Last Ep: 092
Total Featured: 30 Episodes
Crime: Murder
Sentence: Life
Work Area: Laundry, Cleaning Duty
Cell Mates: Bea Smith, Pat O’Connell and Kathleen Leach
Close To: Her mother Jackie
Previous Occupation: Resident of a convent school
Current Status: Assumingly served her sentence and released
Ros is an idealistic young woman. She first appears during episode 63 when she turns up at Wentworth demanding to see Toni McNally. Toni is on remand for murdering Ros’ mother, Jackie. Jackie had been seeing Toni’s husband, Sean, and Toni shot her because she was jealous. Although Toni says she didn’t do it, Ros claims that she has proof that she is the culprit. After Toni is found not guilty at her trial, Ros shoots her outside the court. When Toni hits the ground, Ros fires two more shots at her. Ros is sent to Wentworth on remand in episode 64. She is given a prison uniform and is put into solitary for 24 hours. In the morning, Ros is allocated to share a dormitory with Bea Smith.
During a recreational period, Ros is attacked by Martha Eaves, who is friend of Toni’s. Luckily, Bea comes along just in time to fight Martha off, but unfortunately, this only lands her in solitary. Shortly after this, Ros hears the news that Toni has died in hospital. Ros and Bea get a new cellmate when Pat O’Connell arrives in episode 65. In episode 71, Ros is offered the chance to see the prison psychiatrist, Dr Weissman, but she refuses to do so. During the same episode, Ros is convicted of murder at her trial and is sentenced to life imprisonment. Following this, Ros is very depressed and considers committing suicide.
In the next episode, Ros sets a cardboard box alight in the dining room during a fire drill, and manages to escape Wentworth in the back of a typewriter van. She turns up at the halfway house, which is being run by Karen Travers. Karen is eager to get rid of Ros because the house will be closed down if the police find out. Doreen Anderson on the other hand, wants Ros to stay. Karen allows her to stay the night but tells her she must go in the morning.
Whilst still on the run, Ros goes to stay with a friend of her mother’s who is running a massage parlour in episode 73. Frank Heath, who works for Toni McNally’s widower, talks Ros into becoming one of his employees. Ros steels some money from Frank and returns to the halfway house. Doreen invites Ros into her mother’s house and lends her some of her clothes. In disguise, Ros sets out to catch a bus and leave Melbourne, but on her way she bumps into a man who collapses with chest pains. Ros asks a woman to get help. The woman recognises her and fetches a policeman.
Ros is brought back to Wentworth and put into solitary in episode 74. In episode 75, Ros helps Lizzie Birdsworth write a second version of the Christmas concert, in which Ros plays Greg Miller, the prison doctor. Ros breaks into the drugs cabinet in the doctor’s office and steels some pills, after she receives a lend of a key from Chrissie Latham in episode 77. Ros gives Chrissie the pills in return for a maternity dress, but ends up in solitary for 48 hours after Chrissie lags on her.
Ros is soon released from solitary, but is put back in again just as fast, after a violent brawl with Bea Smith in the recreation room in episode 78. During this time, Ros receives a visit from the visiting justice, who sentences her to a further 3 days in ‘the pound’. In episode 79, Janet Dominguez arrives at Wentworth and is put into solitary next door to Ros. Talking through the walls soon acquaints Ros and Janet. In episode 80, Ros tells Janet she wants to escape again. Janet is planning to escape herself with the help of her terrorist friends, and promises Ros that she can come with them if she helps. Vera Bennett informs Ros that she will be sharing a cell with Kathleen Leach when she is released from solitary. Ros volunteers to do cleaning duty with Kathleen.
Ros has a visit from one of Janet’s friends, who smuggles in a pen full of sleeping capsules. Kathleen fears that the capsules are poisonous, so Ros takes a smidgen of the powder inside to prove her wrong. She then collapses on her bed. In episode 81, Ros is in a very deep sleep because of the powder, but eventually wakes up in the infirmary and is discharged in the morning. Later on in the episode, Ros loses the pen containing the capsules, but finds Lizzie writing a letter with it in episode 82. Whilst mopping one of the corridors, Ros empties the capsules into the coffee urn in the staff room. The officers fall asleep during night duty. Two terrorists break into Wentworth and manage to free Ros and Janet, as Kathleen swallows one of the capsules, to make it look as if Ros has drugged her. Ros and Janet escape from the roof, just as governor Erica Davidson exits the prison. They spot Erica and Janet tells one of the terrorists to shoot her. As he pulls the trigger, Ros pushes him and Erica is shot in her left arm.
Ros actually manages to escape once again, unlike Janet who is shot and recaptured. Ros gets a lift into town on the back of a laundry truck and steels a dress from a washing line in episode 83. She then becomes friendly with a sailor and plans to sail to Brisbane with him on his boat, but is recaptured and brought back to Wentworth in episode 84. Ros returns to working in the laundry. Erica Davidson advises Ros to begin studying again, and makes sure that she is moved to a single cell.
Ros gets into more trouble when she is caught steeling food from the prison kitchen by deputy governor Jim Fletcher. When Erica Davidson and Vera Bennett walk into the dining room, Ros makes it look as if Jim has hit her. In episode 85, Ros is taken into Erica’s office and questioned. Erica gives her yet another 2 days in solitary for laying false accusations towards an officer. Ros has a talk with social worker, Paul Reid in episode 86. She tells him she wants to continue studying HSC, like Erica suggested to her. In episode 87, Ros has another encounter with the visiting justice, who sentences her to a week in solitary. When Lizzie is released for the first time in episode 88, she manages to smuggle a transistor radio belonging to Vera Bennett to Ros in solitary.
In episode 89, Ros is released from solitary for the final time. She gives the radio to Paul Reid, who returns it to the staff room. When Vera finds it in episode 90, she reports it to Erica. Erica comes to the conclusion that the women must have a key to the security gates. Every cell is searched and the women receive body searches, but nothing is found. Later on in the episode, Paul admits to returning the radio. Paul gives Ros some his son’s textbooks to help her with her studies. We last see Ros in episode 92. She is transferred to another block so she can concentrate with her studying.
© 2008 John McRobbie for On The Inside. Not to be reproduced without permission.
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Classic Moment:
Ros makes a break for freedom (#082)
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