Coronation Street‘s Lou Michaelis has bid an emotional farewell to her kids and the cobbles as she prepares to serve time in jail.

The character, played by Farrel Hegarty, had a tough decision to make in new scenes of the soap.

Lou is currently in prison awaiting trial for attacking Gary Windass. As her husband Mick is also behind bars after a dramatic prison escape, Sally and Tim Metcalfe have been looking after the couple’s kids, Brody, Joanie and Shanice.

In tonight’s hour-long episode, Sally received a call from the social worker on Lou’s case, informing her she’d pleaded guilty.

With the chance of getting a longer sentence on the horizon, Sally urged Brody to go and see his mum with her and his sisters.

“It’d mean a lot to your mum,” she told him.

Her pep talk worked as, later on, Sally and the children visited Lou in prison.

“I really appreciate you bringing ’em in again,” Lou told Sally, adding they won’t be her kids “for much longer”.

Sally urged her to be optimistic, but Brody chimed in: “There’s no need in kidding herself.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be alright,” he then added to his mum. “We’re used to it.”

“I always did my best for you,” Lou told her son, asking him to give her and Sally a minute to talk.

In a heartbreaking scene, Lou said she realised she was going to serve “a decent stretch” in jail and asked Sally not to bring the kids again.

“I don’t want you bringing the kids to see me anymore. Not regularly,” she said as she teared up.

“I just don’t want them to get used to seeing me here. And this place getting mixed up in their memory of me.”

An emotional Sally insisted that things would get better. “You will get through this, you need to believe that,” she told Lou.

“Maybe,” Lou said in a flat tone. “I just think it’s best to say goodbye for now. For all our sakes.”

“I will take care of them. I promise you,” Sally said, with Lou replying: “Oh, I know you will.”

Before parting ways, Lou thanked Sally for being “such a good friend” to her. “I didn’t deserve it, so thank you,” she said.

Lou then called her kids over in a broken voice, going for one final hug as tears streamed down her face.

“I’ll look after them, I promise,” Brody said as his mum mouthed, “Thank you”.

Hegarty previously opened up about booking the role of Lou, initially introduced as one half of nightmare couple with husband Mick.

“Lou is gobby, loud, irrational and it’s lovely to be compared to such a big character, like Janice Battersby. You always dream of landing a part like Lou. So to get it later in life, is overwhelming and I cried. I was so happy,” she told the Mirror in May.

The actor described the role of Lou as a “dream come true”, but added that she “always knew [she] would one day be leaving”.