Next Week’s Coronation Street Spoilers – 15th to 19th April

Next week on Coronation Street, Bobby’s attempts to help Roy accidentally see Daniel blamed for Lauren’s murder.

Following this week’s shocking turn of events which saw Roy Cropper (David Neilson) charged with the murder of missing teenager Lauren Bolton (Cait Fitton), Bobby (Jack Carroll) makes a desperate attempt to help the innocent cafe owner… only to put another resident squarely in the frame!

DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) had Roy in her sights right from the off after learning he was the last person to see Lauren.

Oblivious to Roy’s little eccentricities, Swain has only seen a man (inadvertently) putting himself into situations that have thrust him further into the spotlight.

Residents were horrified when Roy was initially arrested and released on bail, but Swain can only look at the evidence presenting itself to her.

“She doesn’t know Roy, and doesn’t care about Roy,” Vicky Myers recently told EverySoap. “Irrelevant of what anybody else says to her, that Roy’s a much loved character on the street, she deals in facts.”

This week saw one of the online vigilantes targeting Roy, Alice, con her way into his home by pretending to be Lauren’s mother Kerry. As she took a video showing the inside of Roy’s flat, as well as Roy sleepwalking, she recorded a commentary making him out to be a murderer.

After her deception was discovered, Alice proceeded to wait outside the cafe and tried to bait Roy into incriminating himself further by making additional accusations.

As Roy attempted to get her to stop filming him, a struggle ensued and Alice tripped on the pavement, causing her to hit her head.

After Alice subsequently accused him of assault, solicitor Dee-Dee (Channique Sterling-Brown) was forced to inform Carla (Alison King), Nina (Mollie Gallagher), Evelyn (Maureen Lipman) and Shona (Julia Goulding) that Roy had now been charged with Lauren’s murder with his bail revoked.

“Roy is innocent in every respect, he is innocent of the crime, but he is also an innocent soul,” David Neilson explains.

“He never thought for one minute it would come to this, he truly felt that if he simply answered everything honestly it would all be okay. He was naive to assume that being innocent meant that he would be seen to be innocent.”

Next week, as Roy appears in court, the CPS barrister goes in hard and paints Roy as a serial offender.

Roy’s ‘violent past’ is brought up as the barrister details the charges he faced for attacking Gary Windass (Mikey North) with a cricket bat after he broke into the cafe, and his and Hayley’s (Julie Hesmondhalgh) ‘abduction’ of Wayne Hayes (Gary Damer) as they attempted to save him from his abusive family in 2001.

“What I like about this storyline is the way it has gone back 29 years to 1995 when Roy first arrived,” David continues. “It is reminiscent of that early Roy Cropper when people were suspicious of his behaviour and thought he was creepy.

“And all this history will be used against him, things that have happened in the past like abducting their foster child. All that makes this storyline interesting to play and to watch it unfold.”

As Nina, Evelyn, and Carla wait to hear if Roy has been granted bail, Dee-Dee delivers Nina a letter that Roy has written. It’s not easy reading, as they realise that Roy has given up and is convinced that he’ll be heading straight to prison.

It all becomes too much for Evelyn, who decides to leave the court to check on Freddie.

Dee-Dee tries her best to plead Roy’s case, but the judge is unwilling to grant Roy’s bail, and orders for him to be incarcerated until the trial.

Carla and Nina are forced to watch as Roy is led away in handcuffs.

As the week progresses, Roy refuses to leave his cell or eat his breakfast—is he strong enough to survive this?

As Bobby talks with Bernie (Jane Hazlegrove) he wonders if there’s anything he can do to help Roy, who he’d previously pointed the finger at himself before coming to know better.

Bobby puts a plan into action and changes his police statement, claiming that he’s suddenly remembered disturbing an intruder wearing a balaclava, and a coat with a fur-trimmed hood, in Lauren’s flat.

Despite a frustrated Swain’s warning that perverting the course of justice is a serious offence that can carry a custodial sentence, Bobby sticks to his story.

When he later retells his claims, Nina, Evelyn and Cassie (Claire Sweeney) listen with interest. Cassie then reveals to Evelyn and Nina that she remembers an identical coat turning up in the charity shop soon after Lauren’s disappearance.

After investigating at the shop, they find that the coat has gone, but did learn that there were other clothes within the same donation, and one of the jumpers just happened to have a nametag in it…

Daniel (Rob Mallard) is stunned when Swain tells him there’s been a development in Lauren’s case and is subsequently dragged back down to the police station for another interrogation.

It would seem that Bobby has inadvertently pointed the finger straight back at Daniel in his attempts to help Roy!

Daniel is quick to put the blame onto Max (Paddy Bever) for causing trouble for him when he later sees him outside the cafe, but this time Max has no idea what he’s talking about.

When Bethany (Lucy Fallon) later reads an article that suggests Lauren was working as an escort, Daniel gets the idea that he could call old acquaintance Nicky Wheatley (Kimberley Hart-Simpson), who he turned to for support after losing wife Sinead.

At the time Nicky was an escort herself, but is now a community outreach worker who Daniel hopes may have heard something about Lauren from the girls she supports on the streets.

But little does Daniel realise that a suspicious Max has followed him, and takes pictures of him meeting with Nicky and her friend Deana.

“This is a prime example of Daniel trying to do something good and inadvertently making a complete mess of things,” Rob Mallard explains.

“Daniel doesn’t think that this would blow back on him, to be seen out and about with Nicky, he’s just trying to clear his name and get the information that can redirect the attention of DS Swain.”

Whilst Nicky explains to Daniel that she’s keen to help, she points out that the girls she speaks to are already on edge following the news of Lauren’s suspected murder.

Meanwhile, Max explains to Bobby that he recognises Nicky as a sex worker, leaving them convinced that Daniel is hiding something…

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Elsewhere on the cobbles, it’s a new beginning for Sean (Antony Cotton) and son Dylan (Liam McCheyne) as they move out of Coronation Street.

Sean has lived with Eileen (Sue Cleaver) at No.11 for the majority of the past two decades, but she was forced to ask her long time friend and lodger to leave after Dylan admitted to holding bully Mason’s (Luca Toolan) zombie knife on the premises.

This past week saw Dylan face up to Mason in court and ensure his imprisonment for threatening Liam (Charlie Wrenshall) with the knife, following Dylan’s own community service order after Mason set him up to be caught with the knife in his backpack.

Dylan’s mum Violet (Jenny Platt) was all set to move Dylan back to London with her, before his impassioned plea to put things right with his loved ones convinced her to let him stay in Weatherfield.

Eileen’s stance has not changed though, and after allowing them the time to sort out alternative accommodation, Sean and Dylan next week make their move to a flat above the Weatherfield Precinct.

Kirk (Andy Whyment) helps out the pair by offering the use of the Underworld van to move their belongings, later dropping Liam and Dylan back at school now that they are both resuming lessons following the Mason ordeal.

Having been to the precinct to check out Sean and Dylan’s new digs, Mary (Patti Clare) reports back to a guilty Eileen that the flat is very sparse, and could do with a good makeover. Mary decides to help by offering Sean a house-warming gift as he later collects his final belongings from No.11, in the form of a scented candle.

Will Sean and Dylan be able to make ends meet in their new place, or will Eileen come to change her mind?

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