Damian Roberts is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Matt Doran.

[2] In September 1994, Justine Cullen from Inside Soap announced that Doran had quit the show in order to pursue other projects.

"[5] Damian is the son of Irene Roberts (Jacqui Phillips) and the younger brother of Finlay (Tina Thomsen) and Nathan (David Dixon).

[6] In The Official Home and Away Annual John Kercher describes the Roberts children's backstory as their suffering Irene's continuous gambling and their alcoholic father, Murdoch (Tom Richards) walked out and left them "to fend for themselves".

In one of the Roberts siblings first storylines with their alcoholic mother, Irene falls down the stairs and claims that Damian and Finlay pushed her.

Norton told Josephine Monroe from Inside Soap that producers informed him that they were more interested in "pushing" Doran and Dieter Brummer (who plays Shane Parrish) to develop their characters instead of Simon.

Doran told a TVTimes writer that "Damien's lead astray because he's never really had a close friend and doesn't want to let Shane down.

"[5] However, when Kelly Chan (Theresa Wong) enrolled at Summer Bay High both boys fell for her and things turned nasty.

[13] Damian is brought to Summer Bay by his alcoholic mother Irene in order to use him to emotionally blackmail his sister Finlay, who ran away and is living with Michael and Pippa, into going home.

Fin's friends Blake Dean (Les Hill) and Simon Fitzgerald attempt to help him out by threatening Tug and forcing him to let Damian beat him in a fight.

Damian gains a friend in classmate Shane Parrish, who soon gets him into trouble by stealing headmaster Donald Fisher's (Norman Coburn) car.

Damian attempts to impress Shane by putting red paint into Donald's golf bag and Michael and Pippa are shocked he'd acted alone.

He also befriends two other new arrivals in town, Sarah Thompson (Laura Vasquez) and Angel Brooks (Melissa George), and helps set the latter up with Shane.

Damian learns that Laura Brennan (Kris McQuade), a reclusive woman living in the area, is a former professional runner and manages to convince her to train him, as well as helping her go into business with Alf Stewart (Ray Meagher) selling organic vegetables.

Damian is mortified when Sally Fletcher (Kate Ritchie), his foster sister, develops a crush on him and kisses him when he is asleep and even more so when Shane reveals the fact to the whole school.

Damian begins taking French language lessons and finds himself attracted to his tutor Cathy (Joy Smithers), a married woman whose husband works away as a lorry driver.

Angel and Sarah, who mistakenly believe Shane is having an affair with Cathy, inadvertently save his blushes by bursting into the house at that moment.

wrote that through playing Damian, Doran had become "one of the world's most popular soap stars" and gained many "girl fans" who "adored him".

They said that the character needed a relationship storyline, adding "when will Matt Doran finally get to have a major on-screen smooch, that's what were asking".

[16] While a fellow writer added that he lacked confidence, but Laura (Kris McQuade) did a "brilliant job" of boosting Damian's self-esteem and proved to be a "great mate".

[17] Kate Langbroek from The Age branded Damian as the show's "residential intellectual" and joked that he was also "smart enough to leave Summer Bay".