Jamie Maguire (born 1980) is the oldest son of Paddy and Mimi Maguire. He first appears in series 4 after serving a ten-year prison sentence for murder. He is a reformed character who strays away from his family's traditional criminal dealings and seeks an honest living. He also has a tendency to sleepwalk on occasion.
Karen & The Jockey
Jamie's name initially brings fear and terror to the residents of Chatsworth due to the crimes he committed. Upon being released from jail, the first person he meets is Karen Jackson, who he catches having sex with a delivery driver outside The Jockey and watches with amusement. Unaware of his reputation, she frequently decries him as a pervert and treats him with contempt.
Much to his parents' confusion, he rejects their offer of accommodation and a job with them and goes looking for a proper job by himself. He inquires at The Jockey, where landlady Jez is terrified of him and gives him a job instantly, assuming that Jamie is looking to extort protection money or set up a front in the pub. However, it becomes apparent that Jamie is not interested in a life of crime anymore and just wants to live and work normally.
He began training as a probation officer, and became engaged to his colleague, Karen Jackson.
In the last episode of series 4, Jamie revealed that he had admitted his guilt in order to get parole so that he could hunt down his father's three former cellmates, who were planning to muscle in on Paddy's territory and dispose of him. His new reformed life was a sham to cover his murders of these three men. Karen assumed that his courtship of her was part of this pretence, but Jamie claimed that he really loved her and they were married at the end of the episode.
Jamie's old cellmate Mark appears one day in The Jockey after recently being freed, where it is revealed that he put himself at risk to save Jamie from being almost killed by a gang in prison. The criminally-active Mark is dismayed to see Jamie's new, honest way-of-life and casually reminds Jamie that he owes him. Jamie acknowledges this but still refuses to get involved in any criminal activity with Mark, who pulls a gun on him and forces him to be his getaway driver from a bank robbery. After crashing the bike and being arrested, he almost faces another ten years in jail, but is freed after his family trap Mark and beat him into confessing.
Jamie starts playing casual football with the local football team in series 6, where he meets captain Joe Pritchard. During this time, his relationship with Karen hits rock bottom, especially after Karen suffers a miscarriage that neither of them were aware of. When Karen refuses to allow Jamie to be joint licensee of the pub, Jamie starts being stubborn around Karen and refusing to help her do menial tasks, driving them further apart. After he attempts to sabotage Karen's application for a wedding license, Karen loses it and throws glasses at him in a fit of rage before kicking him out of the pub.
He returns home to his family and lives there while his and Karen's relationship is on the rocks, but cannot help feeling as if he's failed by doing so.
Return to the Business
While cooking dinner with Mandy, she accidentally spills hot water over her abdomen, revealing harsh bruising all over her body. Jamie confronts Joe downstairs, who vaguely admits to it, but Karen wills them to take it outside. As soon as they step outside, Jamie drops Joe instantly and violently beats him into a coma in front of a baying crowd. Mimi immediately volunteers to confess to the beating in order to keep Jamie out of jail.
Realizing the sacrifice Mimi has made for him, and in light of Paddy's worsening condition and Shane and Mickey's incompetence, Jamie is reluctantly forced to begin working for his family again. He demonstrates supreme ability in intimidation and business-thinking, just like his father, running rings around the attempts of his younger brothers. After catching Paddy shooting up heroin in the bathroom, he formally takes control over the business, murdering the Maguires' closest business rivals by locking them in a room and setting fire to it.