Brendan Richards

Brendan Richards (born 1967) was the ward of Lavinia Smith in the early 1980s. He first met Lavinia's niece, Sarah Jane Smith, during a school break on 18 December 1981. He and Sarah Jane promptly opened the crate that had been sent to her by the Fourth Doctor in 1978 and discovered K9 Mark III. Two days later, he was kidnapped and nearly sacrificed by the Hecate Cult in Moreton Harwood but was saved by Sarah Jane and K9.

Lavinia once told Sarah Jane that she had invested in Brendan's education so that he would not believe everything that he read in the newspapers. He attended Wellington College but sought to convince Lavinia to allow him to attend the local comprehensive school in Moreton Harwood as he did not like boarding. He had a close friend at Wellington named Travis, whose father was in the market gardening business. Lavinia's estate also included a market garden. He was taking three extra O-Levels during the 1981-1982 academic year: Additional Maths, Physics and Biology. Having a keen interest in computer technology, he was extremely impressed by K9 and his computational abilities. Although the original K9 unit had been built by Professor Marius in the year 5000, Brendan was nevertheless familiar with many of the components used in his construction.

As Lavinia was then in the United States, he, Sarah Jane and K9 spent Christmas Day 1981 with Howard and Juno Baker, whom Sarah Jane had mistakenly believed had been part of the Hecate Cult only four days earlier.

_{Biography from the TARDIS Data Core article, licensed under CC-BY-SA}