Joel orders Lauren to take drastic action to save him from his fate in Coronation Street

Sinister Joel Deering (Calum Lill) has devised the next step in covering up his abuse of Lauren Bolton (Cait Fitton) – and has forced her to go along with it.

As we know, Joel left Lauren for dead at the end of February after months of forcing her to have a sexual relationship with him so that he would give her money to pay her bills.

When she decided to leave Weatherfield and start afresh, he panicked and attacked her – repeatedly smashing a chair leg against her head.

In gripping scenes that aired last week, we learnt that she was alive, despite the murder charges brought against Roy Cropper (David Neilson), and later Nathan Curtis (Christopher Harper), living rough to evade running into Joel again.

In a further twist, Lauren also revealed that she is pregnant with his child.

After rushing away again, Joel became more determined than ever to track her down and stop her revealing the truth.

In tonight’s (17th July) episode, he told fiancée Dee-Dee Bailey (Channique Sterling-Brown) that he felt it was his duty to find her as he represented (and also framed) Nathan during her disappearance.

Dee-Dee was still on cloud nine after setting a date for their nuptials, and urged him to let the police do their work.

As she scoured over the bank statements from Bethany Platt’s (Lucy Fallon) card that Lauren allegedly stole, she realised that a train ticket had been purchased from Leicester to Warrington, and the two headed off to see if they could get a lead on her whereabouts.

At a homeless shelter, a woman approached Dee-Dee and Bethany and told them that not only was Lauren pregnant, but had been staying at a derelict pub nearby.

Dee-Dee called Joel – who was meeting up with his blackmailer Betsy Swain (Sydney Martin) – to tell him the good news, prompting him to order her out of his car so he could race towards the scene.

Fearful of being found, Lauren made a great escape out of the back door and instantly ran into Joel, who forced her to stay quiet. Suddenly she collapsed, and the women soon caught up with her.