Carmen Howle

Carmen Howle is a former resident of Elmtree House and Ashdene Ridge.

Before the Series
Before living in care, Carmen lived with her mother, Helen Howle. Eventually, Carmen's mother met a man named Lee who did not like children. They would frequently go out together and leave Carmen alone. On one occasion, Carmen was left home alone for a week while her mum and Lee went on holiday, and was consequently taken into care at Elm Tree House.

Tracy Beaker Returns: Series 1
Carmen had an affinity for the colour pink and would always wear pink outfits. She used slept in a bedroom with pink walls which she named "The Pink Palace". Whilst living at ElmTree House, she became best friends with Lily Kettle, and also made friends with Lily's younger sisters Poppy and Rosie.

The Dumping Ground: Series 1
In S.O.S., Carmen discovers that Jody is living with a horrible brother (Kingsley) and plots a rescue mission. In Seriously Funny, Carmen, Lily and Tee fall out at an unsupervised sleepover at Lily's dad's flat. In Esme, Carmen alienates the Dumping Ground kids when she finds a new best friend, a super rich girl named Esme, who gives Carmen the chance to run away to Rio with her. Carmen realises that she has been fooled by Esme, who has told her mum that Carmen is another rich girl who attends Esme's school, so she returns to the Dumping Ground.

The Dumping Ground: Series 2
In The Barbecue, Carmen does not take the news that Lily is to move to Brighton well. She feels that Lily is being bossed around by her dad too much, and is even more unhappy when Lily reveals that she wants to go. In Hope, Carmen initially dislikes Kazima (Frank's street friend) who is her new room mate, and although they got off to a shaky start, she eventually becomes very good friends with Kaz.

The Dumping Ground: Series 3
In Party Games, Carmen learnt online that her mother had remarried and had not invited her to it. At the open day at Ashdene Ridge, on learning that one of the couples was Matt Brantston and his wife, Stephanie, a famous footballer and his wife, she attempted to woo them in order to be fostered by them. This put her in competition with Bailey, who wanted to be fostered by the couple due to Matt being a footballer. Carmen declined being fostered by them after Stephanie insulted the young people.

In Stuck With You, Carmen and a number of the young people visited a jumble sale, where Carmen purchased a musical box. Unfortunately, Jody had spotted the music box earlier, but had not bought it as she did not have money on her. This led to the girls having an argument with each other. This culminated in them being handcuffed together by Floss (who had purchased the handcuffs at the sale.) Now stuck to each other for the rest of the day, Carmen and Jody fell out over the fact that they wanted to go to two different functions happening at the same time (Carmen a party and Jody a book signing.) Carmen forced Jody to come with her to the party and also forced Jody to wear a face pack, but she suffered an allergic reaction. Eventually, Carmen and Jody resolved their differences, where they learnt that the reason Jody wanted the music box was because her mum had one like it and played it whenever Jody had trouble sleeping. Carmen changed her mind and decided to go the book signing instead.

In Fake it to Make it, Carmen finds out that she has to wear glasses, and becomes annoyed when she has an audition at the modelling agency as she believes that models shouldn't wear glasses.

In Something Borrowed, Carmen accidentally drops May-Li's valuable antique necklace down the toilet, and she recruits Kazima to help her to retain it, although they have to try to retain it discreetly. They are eventually caught by May-Li.

The Dumping Ground: Series 4
Carmen makes her exit from the Tracy Beaker franchise along with Tee Taylor in the 19th episode, One For Sorrow.

Trivia

 * Carmen suffers from arachnophobia