Luke Durville

Luke Durville
First appearance	September 2007
Portrayed by	Gerald Urquhart
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Anaethesist

Luke Durville is a fictional character in the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street. He is played by Gerald Urquhart. He has a quiet manner and awkward demeanour, and has always been a bit of an enigma to his workmates. Despite being highly respected and sought after in his field, he chooses not to socialise with his colleagues, preferring to spend his time alone and pursuing his interest in amateur taxidermy and the history of witchcraft and necromancy.

He first met Sophie McKay when he came in to Justine Jones's office and commented "Your daughter looks just as pretty as you, Justine." Sophie and friend Nate Adamson when went to his home to spy on him. Days after Sophie and Nate asked Justine if they could observe an operation, and she agreed, unaware that the two wanted to see Durville's reaction during a procedure. They were caught taking a photo on a cellphone by Durville who complained to Justine, who asked that the image be deleted. What Justine did not know was Nate had sent the photo as an email to himself before deleting it from his phone. Sophie and Nate went back to Durville's home and found he had clippings of the murder victims Claire Solomon, Meg Harris and Jay Copeland. While snooping around Sophie found a photo of her mother they took photos of what they saw but were disturbed by Durville who found Sophie hiding in a cupboard. Nate threw a stuffed bird at Durville and the two fled.

After the drama he has only been seen in cameo type appearances. He is one of several suspects police are interested for the murders and the disappearance of Beth Wilson as he had no alibi for that night and had been seen talking to Beth in passing. Sophie set off a chain of events that led to her being confronted by Luke when she had presumed he had been arrested. Sophie had created a blog about the Ferndale Strangler and placed a picture of Luke's house on the site. Another person placed Luke's name there saying he was the Ferndale Strangler, this lead to Luke knocking at the McKay's home. A meeting between Luke and Sophie's parents Justine and Callum took place with Luke threatening to sue. Justine and Callum were not impressed with Sophie and ordered her to remove the offending blog which in the meantime had been removed by a network moderator. This scenario lead to Luke taking time away from Shortland Street as he was being hounded by the media.He has currently returned to Shortland Street and maybe has an interest in new Nurse Tracey Morrison