Just when Sam Blakeman (Jude Riordan) thought he’d finally brought down child predator Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon), she’s back. But does she have Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson-Wale) in her clutches once more?
If every single Coronation Street fan didn’t love Sam Blakeman before, they positively adore him now.
The schoolboy sleuth did what nobody else on Coronation Street could, including the Weatherfield police, and realised that butter-wouldn’t-melt athletics coach Megan was actually a dangerous paedophile who was grooming underage Will Driscoll into an illicit ‘relationship’.
Bringing Megan down was not an easy task. The manipulative Miss Walsh did everything in her power to scare Sam into keeping quiet, including sabotaging his grades at school.
Academic performance means the world to Sam, so Megan knew just how to hurt him. Her targeted campaign against the poor lad caused him to spiral into abusing unprescribed Ritalin in a desperate attempt to boost his grades.
This, combined with the traumatic effect Megan was having on his mental health, finally proved too much when he suffered a shock collapse.
This would ultimately prove to be Megan’s downfall. After Sam was rushed into hospital, his concerned adoptive mum Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson) and Will’s step-mum Eva Price (Catherine Tyldesley) were able to coax him into admitting the awful truth – Megan was abusing Will.
If you thought the nightmare ordeal was over, you’ve clearly not watched enough Coronation Street.
Megan is no fool. She’s covered her tracks. When Sam tried to catch her out with secret cameras, she gave an Oscar-winning performance of rejecting Will’s ‘schoolboy crush’. During police interviews with Cobbles copper Kit Green (Jacob Roberts), she turned on the water-works and played the victim, confident in the knowledge that there is not a scrap of evidence that proves she was in a sexual relationship with Will…
… apart from the baby growing in her belly, from the day she took Will’s virginity in the Chariot Hotel. But since Megan won’t consent to a DNA test, good luck proving that in a court of law.
Now that Megan’s been forced to flee the Cobbles after Leanne chucked all her worldly goods out onto the street, the Driscolls are doing their best to break the abuser’s control over Will. Meanwhile, Sam, disheartened to realise that Megan has so far avoided justice, is trying his best to recover from the trauma.
While Leanne and Toyah Battersby (Georgia Taylor) are arguing about Sam’s counselling requirements in the Kabin, Will finds Sam in the Bistro and offers him an apology for everything. Although Sam reluctantly shakes his hand, it’s clear he still isn’t ready to trust Will.
Later, Toyah tries to encourage Sam to stop worrying about Megan and Will. But it’s clear her advice fell on deaf ears at the swings, where Sam tells Hope that he has been reading up on grooming cases. When Will approaches, Hope makes pointed digs about his elderly girlfriend. How will Will react?
As Will chats to Liam in Victoria Garden, Sam approaches and insists that his campaign of intimidation won’t work. Will acts innocent. Is he?
Returning home, Will tells Eva and Maggie how Sam accused him of intimidation for no good reason. Furious, Eva storms into the bistro and rounds on Nick Tilsley (Ben Price), Toyah and Leanne, unloading on them over Sam’s ‘false accusations’ about Will. It’s all kicking off now!
But the worst is yet to come when Sam is shocked when he sees Megan and Will at the precinct!
Flabbergated, he rushes home to tell Nick, Toyah and Leanne. At the pub, Eva summons Will, who swears blind that he hasn’t left the pub all morning. Humiliated and upset, Sam is left looking like an hour.
In the salon flat, Sam curls up on the sofa, consumed with anxiety and paranoia. Was it all in his head… or did he really see Will with Megan?
