Coronation Street reveals Joel as Lauren Bolton’s attacker

Coronation Street tonight revealed the identity of Lauren Bolton’s attacker, three months after the teen disappeared from her precinct flat.

Whilst Roy Cropper (David Neilsen) has been on remand, accused of killing Lauren (Cait Fitton), tonight’s episode saw Nathan Curtis instead charged with her murder, but with a further twist to come.

Roy was facing his own life-threatening situation after Griff Reynolds (Michael Condron) confronted him in his cell, demanding at knifepoint to know where he had hidden Lauren’s body.

Roy’s refusal to confess to a crime he did not commit only frustrated Griff further, with Roy stating that Griff would kill him either way.

Griff then revealed that he was not planning on killing Roy, but that Roy was going to end his own life, as Griff started tying up sheets to hang from the window bars.

Roy was able to raise the alarm with the prison guard, but as he waited for backup, Griff forced Roy to write a goodbye note confessing to Lauren’s murder.

Meanwhile, accompanied by solicitor Joel (Calum Lill) in the interview room, Nathan was stunned when DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) and DC Kit Green (Jacob Roberts) revealed that the hair found in the back of Nathan’s van did indeed belong to Lauren. Therefore, he was being charged with her murder.

Viewers had seen Sarah (Tina O’Brien) plan to plant some of Lauren’s hair in the van, from an old bobble found in the Platt house, but she had changed her mind before being disturbed by Nathan. When Kit later arrived, she gave the bobble to him as he warned her to let the police do their job.

However, as a flashback revealed, Kit then went on to plant the hair in Nathan’s van himself, before calling for a search on it after claiming someone had reported that someone was taking drugs.

With Nathan charged, Roy’s solicitor Dee-Dee (Channique Sterling-Brown) quickly set about securing Roy’s release.

Back in his cell, having written his ‘confession’ and convinced he was now at the end of his life, Roy managed to talk Griff into allowing him to phone Nina (Mollie Gallagher) first. As he did so, the riot squad burst into Roy’s cell and apprehended Griff, just as Nina was able to tell Roy that he was off the hook.

Roy burst into tears, relieved that his ordeal was finally over, and after walking free from Highfield prison, Roy and his loved ones gathered in the café.

However, when Joel went to leave the café, he found Hope (Isabella Flanagan) waiting by the side of his car.

Hope had found a necklace whilst taking part in a car wash to raise funds for Little Big Shotz. She had shown Ruby what she’d found, who implored her to return it to where she found it, or hand it in.

What Hope didn’t realise was that the necklace was actually Lauren’s, a key clue that’s been missing since her disappearance which had been a gift from her unseen boyfriend.

Hope told Joel that she was returning the necklace, having found it under a seat in his car…

It was at this point that the show finally revealed to viewers, via flashback, that Joel was actually the one who attacked Lauren in her flat!

Clues have been dotted throughout the episodes, with the whole reason for Joel’s introduction having revolved around Lauren. The mild-mannered solicitor made his first appearance, back in September, as the duty solicitor brought in to represent Lauren when she’d vandalised the salon, but since then had appeared to have little to do with her.

Joel went on to woo Dee-Dee, but was later discovered to be already married, albeit separated from his wife, with a baby daughter.

The revelation came soon after Dee-Dee had found a receipt from a jewellers. Joel had claimed to have bought himself some expensive cufflinks, before later changing his story to say that he’d bought a bracelet for his daughter.

However, with Lauren having received her necklace very shortly afterwards, it’s now very likely that the receipt would have been for that.

Valentine’s Day also saw Lauren receive a large bouquet from her mystery boyfriend, with Joel later delivering a bouquet in an almost identical box to Dee-Dee.

This week’s episodes also revealed that, following analysis of the texts received by Lauren from her boyfriend, that he was well-educated, with an exceptional grasp of punctuation – a fact that meant Roy had not been able to be discounted following forensic comparisons.

But what became of Lauren? We saw that Joel had bludgeoned Lauren over the head with a chair leg as she lay on the floor, but other than the fact that there were blood splatters in the flat, there’s no firm evidence that Lauren is actually dead as yet.

Acting as Nathan’s duty solicitor, Joel has now found himself in the perfect position to ensure that the finger remains pointed at Nathan should he choose to manipulate his defence.

With Joel all set to propose to Dee-Dee next week, is she in danger, and how long will it be before the truth is revealed?

What reason did Kit have to plant the hair in Nathan’s van and frame him? Does he simply want to see the former sex-trafficker off the streets for good, or is there a more sinister motive?

And will Hope come to realise that the necklace that she handed back to Joel was actually Lauren’s? Does her knowledge also place her in danger?

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Following the reveal, Corrie actor Calum Lill has spoken out about Joel’s double life…

How does it feel for you that the public finally knows what you’ve known for such a long time?
I’m terrified but it’s also a relief. I’ve known this for over a year. It was last May that I got sent the breakdown for Joel saying that he was a charming character who’s got a dark side.

When I got the screen test they said, ‘Okay, this is what Joel is going to be doing’. I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, like this is a really terrible person. And I’ve got to hide in plain sight for a year.’

So you knew at that point how long it was going to be?
Yes I did. In my first meeting with the producer he said that they had already storyboarded it month by month, obviously parts of it can change but the arc of the story spanned the year and a lot of detail had been decided which is rare.

I felt a huge weight of responsibility on my shoulders to do well and not give it away and not play some cliche, because the things Joel has done have happened to people in real life. So I had meetings with charities and did research.

I watched documentaries and read psychological papers to create as much truth as possible. The thing that I kept in my mind was I would never want anyone who’d experienced anything like that to be watching something on screen that didn’t feel authentic and feel offended.

Was it important to you to make this character likeable, affable and charming so that we didn’t start to suspect that there was more to him?
Yes 100%  and a line that I had to tread was I can’t make him so nice that it’s just ridiculous that he could do this. So I’ve just been watching documentaries and reading reports on people like this.

And one thing that kept coming back to me was that they never suspected them, they were so charming, even right to the extremes of people like Ted Bundy.

I’ve watched hours of footage of Ted Bundy to understand his mannerisms and his intonation, not that Joel is based on him, but just to understand the real person. He’s so nice. He’s confident and he’s charming but that is just a facade.

Was it helpful for you to have almost the red herring of the ex wife and the divorce and the daughter that you’ve kept secret from Dee-Dee to give him some sort of side to him that maybe he wasn’t as nice as he seemed?
I think as many people as it’s thrown off the scent I think it’s made other viewers believe that they can’t trust him as he’s already hurt our beloved Dee-Dee.

It was really useful in having a back story and background for him so I can understand how he thinks and how he ticks and his moral compass on that whole situation.

What was it like keeping that secret and what were people’s reactions to you out and about. Did they have suspicions about Joel?
It has been difficult – even my family don’t know, they will have found out at the same time as the viewers. I don’t think they were suspicious as they probably didn’t think I could play an evil character like Joel.

I was having Sunday dinner with my family a couple of weeks ago, and they were all talking about their own theories of who they think it is. And every one of them has got a different one and not one of them thinks it is Joel.

They have not been suspicious of me at all. They were aware that some people were suspicious online but believed me!

We are now in the situation where the audience knows but no one in Weatherfield does. What is next for Joel, is he worried?
I think he’s trying to work out how many loose ends there could be and how to deal with them.

Obviously as a defence solicitor he knows how to play the game and knows that there is reasonable doubt and that he needs to cancel out anything that could be tied down to him.

But you know, this is new territory for him. He might have been in a situation before where he’s broken the law and not treated people very nicely.

But this is new and I think he feels real concern. He has to make it stick on Nathan so no one ever suspects it could be Joel.

How does he feel about representing Nathan?
It was a huge stroke of luck. He was the duty solicitor on the day that Nathan’s questioned. He just happens to be in the right place at the right time, and he is sitting there representing a man who is being wrongly accused of the thing that he did.

He is as shocked as Nathan when the hair in Nathan’s car is proved to be Lauren’s. He doesn’t care about Nathan. 

This could be the thing that gets Roy out of prison and stops Dee-Dee being so stressed about Roy, because he does feel bad about that as he does adore her, that is the one thing that he struggles with and now it looks like the problem is solved.

What makes Joel the way he is?
He is very messed up, he sees women in two ways. He has these women he adores and puts on a pedestal like Dee-Dee and then there are the other women, the young girls that he sees as lesser in some way in his eyes and takes his hatred for women out on them.

When he sees these vulnerable young women probably from broken homes, with criminal records and no one looking out for them, he is like a shark he hones in on them, coercively controls them and emotionally manipulates them using his power and money.

If you were to sit down and try and ask him why he did it he would justify it as just helping them.

When no one else would. It is a repetitive pattern of behaviour, he engages with these young girls and afterwards there is the element of guilt so he tries to be a good person and be better towards Dee-Dee.

Then the guilt wears off and he needs another ‘fix’, he has a euphoria/guilt cycle. It is a pattern of destructive behaviour. And we will see in the coming weeks that he is still doing it.

How long do you think he can continue hiding in plain sight? Is he going to make any mistakes?
I mean, the longer he hides the more chance there is of him making a mistake. He’s been good so far in that he’s been engaging in this behaviour as long as we have seen him, and Lauren was attacked in February. 

And no one’s seen him. No one’s caught him out until now but they don’t actually know they have caught him out.

But I think the longer it goes on for, the more chance he’s got of slipping up and I think he knows that. You can see that in him getting more and more anxious that the slightest thing could bring his world crumbling down around him, you know, even just the fact that he slept with Lauren.

That’s a breach of trust alone and will be enough to end his career and relationship plus murder on top of that, his life would be over you know. Everything that he values in his life, his job, his fiance, his freedom?

So the stakes couldn’t be higher. But when he panics, the more chance there is of something going wrong.