CORONATION Street looks like a cosy place to live – but dangerous criminals, twisted villlains and heart-breaking betrayals lurk around every corner.
Now fans are shocked over what they say is a bad taste blunder in the storyline of Toyah Battersby.
Last week Toyah revealed she had suffered a stillbirth after being raped in 2001 and had buried the baby girl on the Red Rec by a rose bush.
Long time Corrie watchers have spoken about their horror at the “low point” plot calling it “unnecessarily bleak” and fumed that the show was using a retcon – a technique where an old plotline is revisited with a new information to change the perception of an event – to tell Toyah’s story.
“Why is a show that was seen as the gold standard of soaps reduced to using cheap tactics for stories and in need of creating shockingly disgusting retcons to push itself forward?
“What does giving Toyah a baby with her rapist, a child loss, and the burial even do for her?” wrote one furious fan.
The latest storyline is the latest in a long line of controversial, twisted or devastating dramatic moments that have had soap fans on the edge of their seats – or reaching for the off button.
‘Norman Bates with a briefcase’
Richard Hillman, played by Brian Capron, is one of the most hated soap villains of all time.
He was branded “Norman Bates with a briefcase” by his third wife Gail Platt.
Richard left a colleague to die after a fall then stole from him, tried to murder his wife Gail’s mother, and actually did murder both Maxine Peacock and his ex-wife Patricia Hillman.
Gail and her children narrowly escaped death when he abducted them and drove them all into the canal.
After the car plunged into the water, Gail and her kids were all saved but Richard was left behind at the bottom of the canal, ending his reign of terror over the cobbles.
Brian said years after his character died, he feared going on social media due to how much people hated Richard.
“I don’t do Twitter and I don’t do Facebook,” he said. “This started after I did a certain psychopathic character in a certain soap. You get a lot of abuse.
“I didn’t want to see anybody saying how awful I was. So I stayed off it altogether.”
Sick sex monster
The sinister would-be sex trafficker Nathan Curtis, played by Christopher Harper, had stomachs churning in 2017 when he groomed teenager Bethany Platt, played by Lucy Fallon.
Nasty Nathan convinced the vulnerable Bethany to move in with him and claimed he was turned on by her having sex with his friends.
In fact, he was pimping her out and collecting money by facilitating her horrific rape.
Intending to sell her into sex trafficking, Nathan tried to take Bethany overseas with a stolen passport but the plucky teenager found the courage to tell a woman in a service station what was happening and Nathan was arrested and sent to prison.
Now, Coronation Street has confirmed Nathan will return to the cobbles, terrifying a now adult Bethany after being released from prison.
‘Killer’ Katy Harris‘ murder-suicide
Katy Harris had fans on the edge of their seats when she fell pregnant to Martin Platt, a man 20 years her senior and then had an abortion when her manipulative dad Tommy Harris convinced her Martin was having an affair.
When Martin dumped Katy for having an abortion, Tommy couldn’t help but gloat over his daughter so she smashed him over the head with a wrench, killing him.
Viewers quickly dubbed her “Killer Katy”.
Horrified by what she had done and unable to cope with the guilt, Katy committed suicide shortly after the murder.
Daniel cheats on Sinead as she’s dying
As Daniel Osbourne’s wife and mother of his child Sinead Tinker lay dying, he was locking lips with Bethany– a move that horrified viewers.
The smooch occurred during an early Christmas party for Sinead, who was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer and would likely not make it to December.
At the party, tensions over the diagnosis came to a head between Daniel and his sick wife.
After leaving to get some air, Daniel ran into Bethany and shared how upset he was at his wife’s diagnosis.
In an effort to comfort him, Bethany embraces him and then returns his kiss but the intimacy is shattered when Daniel’s Dad Ken Barlow interrupts them and orders Daniel back inside to his dying wife.
The father, the sons and the psychopath
In one of the more convoluted storylines, Andy Carver conned Michael Rodwell (played by Les Dennis) into thinking he was his long-lost biological son Gavin.
The truth came out when the real Gavin Rodwell returned from Thailand – but then died from a heart attack while driving.
Michael would die of the same thing while trying to escape from serial killer and infamous Corrie villain Pat Phelan.
Phelan was one of Corrie’s most hated baddies who manipulated, lied and murdered his way through four years on the street.
The evil builder blackmailed Owen Armstrong and his wife – the first for money, the second for sex.
As well as watching coldly while Michael died in front of him, Phelan kidnapped Andy then forced him to kill his old partner in crime Vinny Ashford.
He then murdered Andy and dumped both the bodies in the canal.
Phelan would go on to kill again – this time Luke Britton, who got too close to the truth when he tried to trace Andy’s whereabouts.
That was the saddest one, I think. Most people were sad about that. They were shocked. I think it was shocking for Phelan as well
Connor McIntyre
Phelan smashed him over the head with a rock before a thrilling chase ended ended in Luke crashing, and Phelan shooting first him, then the petrol tank of his car which exploded into a ball of flames.
Connor McIntyre, who played Phelan, said in an interview that Luke’s death was one of the saddest.
“That was the saddest one, I think. Most people were sad about that. They were shocked. I think it was shocking for Phelan as well.”
Grief-stricken kidnapping
When 13-year-old Sarah Platt gave birth to her daughter Bethany in 2000, a grief-stricken and unwell Alison Webster set in motion a chain of events that would end in her death.
Alison was in the same hospital as Bethany to give birth to her and Kevin Webster’s son Jake – but tragedy struck when the newborn died of Streptococcus.
Inconsolable with grief. Alison walked out of the hospital with baby Bethany – sparking a huge police hunt.
She was eventually found by Kevin, who convinced her to hand the tiny baby back – but immediately afterwards, Alison deliberately ran into the path of an oncoming truck and was killed instantly.
The body under the floorboards
Drug dealer Callum Logan met a nasty end when he was murdered by Kylie Platt as he attempted to rape her sister-in-law Sarah in 2015.
Kylie was the mother of Callum’s son Max and he terrorised her with attempts to get access to their son while threatening the family with violence.
He tried to extort the Platt family to pay off a drug lord, sent gangsters after Gail Platt’s mum Audrey and viciously beat Sarah Platt’s ex-boyfriend Jason Grimshaw for daring to stand up to him.
When Sarah tried to get Callum to confess to his crimes while secretly recording him, he caught on and flew into a rage, pinning her to the floor of the Platt’s home with the intention of raping her.
Kylie saved Sarah by smashing the gangster over the head with a wrench and then enlisting husband David Platt to help hide the body under a manhole in the garage of the house.
The three Platts kept the secret of their horrendous crime for eight months until it was smashed wide open.
The hiding place was discovered in May 2016 when a neighbour crashed his truck through the annex accidentally and the concrete cracked – releasing the stench of Callum’s decomposing body.
Builders found the body, and an investigation began – but Kylie would take the secret to her grave after being stabbed to death by Clayton Hibbs before she could flee.
The murder was eventually pinned on Jason’s late dad Tony.
Acid attack
The beautiful Daisy Midgely was a victim of one of Coronation Street’s most terrifying storylines when she was at the mercy of a violent, obsessive stalker.
Daisy – played by Charlotte Jordan– met the seemingly kind Justin Rutherford while she was in hospital for a cancer scare, and he was supporting his terminally ill mother.
But Justin then embarked on a months-long terror campaign where he bombarded her with texts and calls, changed the date of her wedding by impersonating her to the venue and even broke into her home.
The horrifying storyline came to a head when Justin turned up at the Rovers Return on the day of her wedding, intending to hurl acid in her face.
Ryan Connor, Daisy’s friend, leapt in front of the acid and took the brunt of the burns as Justin fled out the back door.
Ryan suffered life-changing injuries and Daisy was left burned on her chest by the violent assault.