Coronation Street Joel’s ‘next victim’ exposed as fans spot chilling ‘pattern’

Coronation Street fans are growing increasingly worried for DeeDee Bailey after her boyfriend Joel Deering was unmasked as Lauren Bolton’s attacker.

On Thursday (May 30), fans saw Hope Stape hand Joel the necklace she’d found while cleaning his car – the same necklace that had been gifted to Lauren by her mystery boyfriend. Flashbacks then revealed Joel had beaten Lauren with a wooden chair leg as she screamed – but didn’t confirm if she’s dead or just being held hostage.

Joel and Kit Green helped to put groomer Nathan Curtis behind bars for the crime, seeing Roy Cropper released from prison after framing Nathan. While it’s not clear whether they’re in it together or not just yet, fans think they’ve found a disturbing ‘pattern’ to Joel’s behaviour which points to DeeDee becoming his eventual victim.

He and DeeDee haven’t had sex yet as DeeDee wants to wait until marriage – but fans think romping could be the trigger which causes Joel’s destructive behaviour after he cheated on his ex-wife and beat Lauren.

One Reddit user pointed out: “Dee Dee is gorgeous and deserves better but I think this is the reason Joel treats her so well… He has no respect for girls /women especially the ones who does the Internet soft porn. He thinks they are cheap and just to be used and abused.

“Now it came out a few months ago that due to her religious views Dee Dee isn’t having sex with Joel even though they have been in a relationship for many months Therefore in his eyes she is ‘pure’ and ‘good’ and ‘respectable’. Therefore he isn’t nasty with her as he is with women in general.”

Someone else wrote: “I worry for DeeDee if they ever do marry/have sex.” Another said: “I have no proof of this but according to my die hard Corrie fan mam he will kill DeeDee.”

DeeDee lost it with Joel when he suggested she had more to learn about being a lawyer when she worried about losing Roy’s case – and fans are worried even a minor disagreement could trigger the horrifying behaviour he exhibited with Lauren.

Joel star Callum Lill knew “for over a year” that his character was responsible for attacking Lauren, explaining: “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.”