Ritchie Stringer

""I got shot once, it gives you a whole new outlook. Use it wisely!""

- Ritchie Stringer gives his associate Phil Mitchell a tip-off in the latter's plan to incriminate his own shooting on their mutual acquaintance Dan Sullivan

Ritchie Stringer is a fictional character of the BBC British soap opera drama EastEnders; merely appearing in both 10 April 2001 and 12 April 2001.

History
Ritchie Stringer first arrived in Albert Square when his associated hardman, Phil Mitchell, summoned him to the street with a requested favor; to help Phil incriminate his shooting on their mutual acquaintance, Dan Sullivan. It transpires that Dan had worked for Ritchie in the past, and so he does not suspect anything untoward when Ritchie provides him with a gun to do a raid on Phil. However, it is all part of Phil's plan, and Dan is caught by the police in the middle of the armed robbery. It soon becomes clear that the gun Ritchie had given Dan is the same gun that was used to shoot Phil, even though Dan never shot Phil and the gun itself had belonged to their common nemesis Steve Owen; earlier on, it was revealed that the shooter was in fact Phil's ex-girlfriend Lisa Shaw. Nonetheless, Dan is consequently blamed for the shooting when Phil confirmed this to the police without exposing Ritchie's involvement behind the crime.

Trivia

 * Ritchie Stringer was 10/3 at Ladbrokes bookmakers as the culprit in the "Who Shot Phil?" storyline, despite not being one of the named suspects. When the BBC announced that actor Gareth Hunt was appearing in EastEnders, there was a massive betting flurry on Ritchie being the culprit. Bookmakers William Hill even "closed the book". William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe commented that there were "dozens of calls" within half an hour of a 16/1 price being quoted and the bookmakers had nearly been "knocked over in the rush of punters wanting to place bets of hundreds of pounds on the actor". Betting flurry on EastEnders killing" William Hill decided to reopen the book later in the week after "information from unofficial BBC sources had convinced them that Gareth Hunt's character was not the killer."