Adam's introduction to the show begins when Manda Best (Josie Lawrence) tells her boyfriend Minty Peterson (Cliff Parisi) that her son, Adam is on a summer holiday abroad but will return to the UK shortly due to his academic studies.

Minty is reluctant when Manda suggests Adam stay with them as they don't have a spare room as they have a lodger Darren Miller (Charlie G. Hawkins).

He quickly forms a low opinion of Minty, and takes a liking to Libby Fox (Belinda Owusu), Darren's girlfriend.

He soon returns to Oxford but his car breaks down whilst he is in hospital for a routine health check.

He continues to tease a distraught Darren after he spent the night on a bench, but Manda tells Adam he should know when someone is in need.

When Manda comes home one night in tears, she tells Adam she thinks Minty is having an affair.

Adam and Libby search for evidence and find a letter that Sam Mitchell (Danniella Westbrook) has sent him.

Darren confronts him saying he has probably been bad-mouthing him for months, and Adam hits back by saying that Libby makes up for being unattractive by being good in bed.

After Lucy's final exam, Adam demands sex but she refuses, saying she has played him at his own game and won.

"[1] The show's executive producer, Diederick Santer, said it was "about time" the show cast an adult actor with a disability, as up until Proud's casting, all disabilities in the show had been portrayed by children or non-disabled adults: "In recent years, we've had a number of regular and guest characters with disabilities, some of them children like Janet Mitchell [who has Down's syndrome] and more recently Syd's son, Noah [who is deaf].

It is one of those lovely bonuses of doing what I do, you feel like hopefully if you do it right you're encouraging more disabled people to get into acting and not just increasing people's awareness of disability," and said he is not worried about the inevitable narrow-mindedness of some of the EastEnders audience: "Someone once said, 'If you can't laugh at yourself you're missing the joke of the century'.

"[3] Proud also said that the programme's sets may cause problems for the character, but will serve to highlight them: "We haven't tackled the height of the Queen Vic bar yet!

"[3] Although the character's spina bifida is not the focus of his storyline, he still has to deal with other people's reactions to his disability.