Peter Hastings

Peter Hastings is Melissa Hastings and Spencer's father. He is a successful attorney and is all about winning and being the best. He is the picture perfect husband and father who controls a seemingly picture perfect family. For him there is no room for mistakes or any other flaws, and Spencer and her mother make sure of that -- even if it means hiding secrets from him. Peter does everything in his power to seal a deal.

Season 1
Peter is overbearing when Spencer discusses her desire to enroll in a college class outside her high school work. While her father is somewhat encouraging, he criticizes her decision to take a class for fun and hopes that her choice of a class will be more goal oriented, even if it is a boring choice.

Peter convinces his daughter to throw a match to help him land a client, which makes her angry. Spencer feels it is dishonest and so, in a moment of truth, admits to her father that she stole the essay for the writing contest that she is poised to win.

In "A Person of Interest," Peter and Veronica question Spencer about her recent behavior and her belief that Ian is dangerous. They seem to side with Melissa and Ian for the most part though, casting Spencer as psychotic, although Veronica is more patronizing and doubtful than is Peter.

Season 2
Peter makes a more significant appearance in this season.

In "It's Alive," Peter is the one who presses therapy on the girls. He turns Toby Cavanaugh away when he comes knocking for Spencer, not wanting him to ruin his daughter's already tarnished reputation. Later, Ashley and Ella  criticize Tom in conversation for not having had his daughter's best interest at heart, but rather for wanting to keep up appearances and buy his way out of a problem in the form of a therapist.

When Officer Garrett comes to the house, he privately pushes him to do all that is possible to find Ian, showing that he completely distrusts Spencer's version of things that Ian is dead, rather than a missing person.

In "Never Letting Go," Spencer finds him arguing with Jessica DiLaurentis on several occasions. When he is confronted about it, he makes up lies or just mysteriously tells her to stay away from Jason DiLaurentis.

He plays a large part in "Surface Tension." He hires Toby to do work in the yard while Mrs. Hastings and Melissa are away. When Toby finds the broken field hockey stick, he acts very suspiciously by taking away the possible murder weapon, as well as telling Toby not to tell Spencer and to forget that the whole thing ever happened. He later burns it, despite his daughter's protests, an act that Mrs. Hastings defends when Spencer questions her about it. He implies that he thinks Spencer planted the blood-covered trophy, although it is not clear if he means that or is simply being patronizing.

Peter makes an even larger role in "I Must Confess." Spencer and Toby catches him walking out of the DiLaurentis house, and Spencer immediately pounces on the fact. When Peter gets snappy with his daughter, Toby steps up to her defense only to get yelled at in return and threatened to be fired. Spencer tries to protect Toby and later runs off in tears after a rather snappy response by her father. To her father's chagrin, Spencer climbs into Toby's car, only to have Peter bang on the door while Toby tries to drive away.

When Spencer returns at night, she finds her father sitting at the couch. They exchange some words in a much more calm fashion, and Peter confesses that the DiLaurentis family forced him to change the will of Alison's grandmother in the south back to an early version that included two grandchildren. The will originally left everything to Alison, excluding Jason. Because of the disappearance and the presumed death of Ali, Jessica DiLaurentis orders him to change the will to include Jason, so that it doesn't seem like Jason is a murder suspect. When Spencer asks why doesn't he tell the police, Peter states that if he does, he will lose his job as an attorney. Spencer asks her father why he even did it in the first place, and Peter gets all dark. Apparently, the DiLaurentis family knows something that Peter desperately wants to forget, and they had hung the fact over his head, forcing him to change the will. When Spencer asks what is it, Peter gets all gruff and leaves the room, telling his daughter he answered enough questions for one night. Spencer is left bewildered and confused.

In "Over My Dead Body," Spencer’s parents fuss at the police station, and Mr. Hastings informs someone over his cell phone that the girls are in custody, though they haven’t been booked. Just then, Jason appears, and Peter immediately approaches him to beg him to leave. But Jason is firm in his belief that his sister would have wanted him here, to which Mr. Hastings says he did things to protect Jason. Jason underlines that he didn’t kill Ali, so there was never a need to protect him. Jason tells Peter that he bought the house because Ali was great at keeping secrets and punishing people with the truth. Then Jason asks whether Mrs. Hastings knows, mysteriously implying something that Peter comprehends immediately. Peter says no and insists that Veronica not find out whatever secret they are keeping that night with everything else that is going on...