Harry Pearce

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Harry Pearce
Peter Firth as Harry Pearce
First appearance	2002
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Head, Counter-Terrorism
Relationships	Ex-wife, née Townsend
Children	Daughter, Catherine Townsend Son, Graham (surname unknown)
Portrayed by	Peter Firth

Harry Pearce is the fictional head of the Counter-Terrorism department of MI5, featured in the British television series, Spooks, also known as MI5 in the United States. This character has been played by Peter Firth since the series began in 2002, and continues to be.

Harry Pearce is divorced, with two children. While his ex-wife and son never appear on screen, his daughter (Catherine Townsend - taking her mother's name after the divorce) does feature in the series three episode A Prayer For My Daughter, played by Caroline Carver. At the start of this episode he sees her as emotional and always the one to spot a 'bird with a broken wing', but by the end of it he has shown that he cares for her deeply and has grown to respect her intelligence. (He mentions at the start that 'it was her brother who got the brains', but it is stated later in the episode that this brother has not succeeded in life.)

He did however, have a budding relationship with Ruth Evershed, another one of the main characters. This relationship was brought to a head in series 5, when he worked up the courage to ask her to dinner by episode 3, but lost her 2 episodes later when she was forced to leave the country and series, it appears permanently.

The character is considered by many fans to be the pillar of the show, providing both a backbone to the team and is often the cause of many of the comic relief situations present in the series, most notably in his exchanges during series 1 with Jools Siviter, played by Hugh Laurie. He is well respected by his colleagues. He has thus survived two cliffhangers where he appeared to be about to be killed (series 2 and series 4 respectively).