Steph has a sharp tongue and can be vain, selfish and arrogant but she has mellowed in recent years.
2000 Makes school friend Zara Morgan feel insecure with her arrogant attitudes.
2001 Beds virgin Brian Drake and devastates Zara, who has a crush on him.
2002 Successfully seduces footballer Scott Anderson but can't keep him for herself. Mum Frankie, dad Johnno, sister Debbie and brother Craig move into the village.
2003 Bludgeoned by Hollyoaks serial killer Toby Mills and is the only one of his victims to survive. Left with epilepsy as a result of the attack.
2004 Dates Darren Osborne but he freaks when she has a seizure. Starts a hate campaign against killer Toby's wife Ellie. Snogs Debbie's ex – and Ellie's brother - Dan Hunter.
2005 Signed up by an agent and her first job is advertising laxatives in a poster campaign! Unexpectedly falls for geeky student Cameron Clark. Helps Cameron with his OCD problem.
2006 Cameron overcomes his problem and leaves to tour with his band. Her now stepbrother Darren Osborne becomes her manager and gets her seedy gigs. Nearly killed in a fire at The Dog. Sleeps with celebrity Joe Jones and her tabloid kiss-and-tell gives her a brief taste of fame.
2007 Makes firm friends with supergeek Elliot Bevan. Seven-year-old Tom Cunningham develops a crush on her and is heartbroken when she starts dating his big brother Max!
2008 Max proposes but after a row she ends up in bed with the persistent Niall Rafferty. Reunited with Max but he is tragically run over by Niall and dies on their wedding day.
Carley was born in 1982 and grew up in Billinge in Wigan, Greater Manchester. She attended the local St Peter's High School and later Winstanley College, where she did her 'A' Levels.
When she was three-years-old, Carley started going to dance classes and in her early years she appeared in pantomimes and musicals and entered singing and dancing competitions. In 2000, she beat over 15,000 hopefuls to reach the final 15 of a competition run by the News of the World newspaper to put together a singing group although she didn't win the competition.
Carley added acting to her list of skills when she was a teenager after joining a Saturday acting class run by her agent and she was accepted into drama school after finishing her 'A' Levels. She auditioned for Hollyoaks in between school and drama college and she gave up her college place to take the role in the soap.
Now the longest-serving female member in Hollyoaks, Carley has not given up her music skills and as well as writing songs and playing the drums and piano she sings in a girl group called Diamond Live alongside friends Catherine Rowse, Emma Schofield and Emma Lori. The girls perform classic hits and numbers from musicals, often at charity events.
Carley is committed to raising money for charity and since Steph's epilepsy storyline in 2003 she has become a patron of Sheffield-based epilepsy charity Fable, alongside co-star and boyfriend Ricky Whittle, who plays Calvin Valentine. Carley also appeared in the BBC's Children In Need 2007 charity show Celebrity Scissorhands.
