List of Shortland Street characters (1998)

Damien Neilson was the identical younger brother of the villainous – Darryl (Mark Ferguson). Damien was created following the resignation of Angela Dotchin (who portrayed Kirsty Knight). Producers planned for Kirsty to leave the show with her true love and the obvious choices were Stuart (Martin Henderson) or Darryl Neilson. There was however several issues, Henderson was busy and Ferguson's character had been killed off as the result of a contractual dispute. Ultimately, Ferguson was brought back to the show as the only unseen brother in the Neilson family unit.

In 1993 Damien rang his mother Marj (Elizabeth McRae) and announced regret at not being able to attend father, Tom's (Adrian Keeling) funeral. In mid 1995 Marj informed Jenny (Maggie Harper) that she was not close to Damien as he was the third child, and thus she didn't often speak of him. In 1998 Damien arrived at the clinic to a very shocked Kirsty Knight, whom Darryl had tried to rape several years before hand. However Damien and Kirsty bonded and she realised he was vastly different from his deceased brother. The home for sexually deviant teenagers that Damien ran caught alight and Damien was seriously injured. He required intensive surgery in Wellington and Kirsty realised she loved him. The two departed Ferndale in early 1998. Provided by Wikipedia