Daniel’s horrible accusation about Bethany as she comes face to face with rapist Nathan in Coronation Street

Sick paedophile Nathan Curtis (Chris Harper) has returned to Coronation Street – but Daniel Osborne (Rob Mallard) is convinced he was a figment of Bethany Platt’s (Lucy Fallon) imagination.

Nathan was imprisoned for raping Bethany back in 2017, after grooming her over a period of several months.

They first met at his tanning salon and before long she began working there, creating tutorials for hairstyles and posting them online to a flurry of positive comments – unaware that he’d employed his assistant Mel Maguire (Sonia Ibrahim) to boost the views and compose the niceties.

Before long, the teenager fell madly in love with him and her mum Sarah (Tina O’Brien) prevented her from contacting him.

Desperate to get one up on her family and friends, Nathan began alienating Bethany from her loved ones and pimped her out to his own vile mates.

Left bewildered after being sexually assaulted, he continued to twist the knife further and proposed to her. The two prepared to start their new life together but as they ran away, the red flags began to show and she sought help from a family in a motorway service station.

Nathan, alongside his cronies, were handed custodial sentences.

A year later, now working in Tassels strip club, Bethany saw a vision of Nathan over one of her clients’ faces.

In tonight’s (8th May) episode, she headed down to the precinct with her neighbours to watch the reconstruction of Lauren Bolton’s (Cait Fitton) last moments being filmed.

Looking through the crowds, she believed she was suffering yet another hallucination when a familiar face was spotted amongst the crowds of onlookers – Nathan.

Rushing home to tell Daniel that she was certain it was him, he seemed doubtful that her abuser would be back in Weatherfield and asked her to clarify whether or not her imagination was running wild.

When his old pal Nicky Wheatley (Kimberley Hart-Simpson) arrived at the builder’s yard flat, she came with an intriguing update in the disappearance.

She explained that her sex worker outreach programme had helped her to connect with a girl named Ellie that was groomed as a teenager – and potentially held the key to solve the mystery.