Jake Simmonds was a young member of the resistance group called the Preachers. They opposed John Lumic's Cybermen on a parallel Earth.
Jake kidnapped Mickey Smith, who was a parallel version of Ricky Smith, the new "most wanted" person in London, thinking he was Ricky. They found Ricky already at their base and scanned Mickey, unable to determine what he was. Mickey joined the Preachers in following an International Electromatics van in their fight. Cybermen began emptying from the vans and attacked Jackie Tyler's party. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)
Following the attack, the Preachers rescued the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler and Peter Tyler, and headed for Battersea Power Station, which functioned as a factory where the Cybermen were upgrading the whole of London after it was shut down. After the Cybermen killed Ricky, Mickey joined Jake in helping deactivate the transmitter controls on Lumic's zeppelin, preventing any more residents. After Mickey helped blow up the factory, he insisted Jake that they save Mickey's friends, who were inside the burning factory, with the zeppelin. After doing so, Mickey decided not to return to his own universe, but to stay behind to shut down other Cyberman factories, he said to Jake that he wasn't trying to replace Ricky, but that they could remember him by fighting in his name. Their first destination was Paris. (TV: The Age of Steel)
Jake detailed events about the war with the Cybermen. (GAME: Cyber Assault)
During the Cybermen attack on Torchwood Tower in Mickey's home universe, Jake, Pete, Mickey and other soldiers came from the parallel Earth and killed numerous Cybermen. When the Tenth Doctor sealed the breach between the parallel Earth and Earth, all the parallel Earth soldiers that survived the attack returned to their own world, including Jake. (TV: Doomsday)
Personality
Jake cared for Ricky, not wanting to put him or his family at risk. At times, Jake was rather impulsive, thinking an AK-47 loaded with bullets would stop Cybermen, and would've killed the human guards protecting Lumic's transmitter if not for Mickey pointing out he would be no better than those he's fighting. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen, The Age of Steel)
He believed Peter Tyler to be at fault for getting Lumic to where he is now, and that justice must be done: in his words, execution. Jake's main priority was whether Ricky had survived when only Mickey came to regroup with the rest of them. Afterwards, he held Mickey in contempt as he only gave him bad memories, telling Mickey he's nothing and not wanting him coming along when Jake attacked Lumic's transmitter. After stopping the Cybermen in London, however, he recognised Mickey had done good and respected his decision to stay and continue fighting the Cybermen in Ricky's name despite the Doctor warning him he could never go back to his own world in doing so. (TV: The Age of Steel)
Behind the scenes
- In a deleted scene, Jake says that Ricky was his boyfriend, to which Mickey replies, "Okay, definitely not replacing him."
- Andrew Hayden-Smith's appearance alongside companion actors and actresses in Pointless and Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty have brought into question Jake's status as a possible one-off companion amongst the fandom.
