Coronation Street spoilers: Paedophile Nathan ‘dead’ in violent twist – with several suspects

There’s horror in store for Bethany Platt (Lucy Fallon) when she comes face to face with Nathan Curtis (Chris Harper) in coming episodes of Coronation Street. Part of her shock is that she believed he was still in prison, where he’s been since being found guilty of grooming and raping her in 2017.

She spots Nathan in a crowd of people who’ve gathered to watch a police reconstruction of Lauren Bolton (Cait Fitton)’s last known movements – and his presence makes Bethany wonder whether Nathan could be involved in Lauren’s disappearance.

She shows a video of the police reconstruction to Daniel (Rob Mallard), and then heads to the police station where DS Swain (Vicky Myers) confirms that Nathan has been released from prison. Bethany begs DS Swain to bring him in for questioning about Lauren’s disappearance.

It seems that Nathan has an alibi for when Lauren disappeared and Craig (Colson Smith) lets slip that the alibi was provided by Nathan’s girlfriend, who runs a nail bar.

This sounds familiar to Bethany because Nathan was running a tanning salon at the time he groomed her and she wonders whether he’s still involved in the same vile activities.

Sarah (Tina O’Brien) becomes worried about Bethany’s determination to pin Lauren’s murder on Nathan, and Nathan himself has an angry altercation with Bethany about harassing his girlfriend.

David (Jack P. Shepherd), Sarah and Gary (Mikey North) discuss Nathan in the Rovers and they all agree that they need to do something to stop him ruining Bethany’s life all over again.

Then we see Nathan at the building site where he works. He’s approached by a hooded figure who hits him over the head. Nathan crumples to the ground, unconscious.

Clearly there are various people who have reason to want to attack Nathan. David, Sarah and Gary have already said that they need to do something about Nathan.

There’s also Daniel, who’s worried sick about Bethany and of course he’s previously shown that he’s perfectly capable of getting violent at times.

There ends up being two chief suspects – David and Daniel. Shona (Julia Goulding) notices a stain on David’s jeans that looks like it could be blood or dirt from the building site.

He insists he’s innocent, but information from the tracking app on Shona’s phone shows that he was at the building site when Nathan was attacked.

David finally admits he was there – but although he saw the attack, he wasn’t the one responsible.

This leaves Bethany with a prime suspect – Daniel. Was he really the one who attacked Nathan? And was evil Nathan responsible for Lauren Bolton’s disappearance?