Coronation Street viewers have sent their love to Sophie Lancaster’s family amid the hate crime storyline.
In last night’s episode of the ITV soap (Wednesday, May 6) Nina Lucas and her boyfriend Seb Franklin went for a walk. But they were attacked by Corey Brent, Kelly Neelan and their friends.
The storyline is inspired by the real-life murder of Sophie Lancaster.
Sophie was a young 20-year-old gap-year student. Thugs cruelly took her life when they beat her to death in an unprovoked attack on August 24 2007.
A number of teenage boys attacked Sophie and her boyfriend Robert Maltby as they were walking through Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Rossendale.
Sophie’s head injuries were so severe she went into a coma from which she never regained consciousness.
She died of her injuries 13 days later.
Read more: Coronation Street SPOILERS: What’s next for Seb and Nina?
Robert received such a beating, he ended up in a coma and nearly died.
The police believed Sophie and Rob were attacked as a result of their goth appearance
Sophie’s mum Sylvia founded The Sophie Lancaster Foundation in memory of her daughter. She has been working with Corrie with the mission of tackling hate crime through Seb and Nina’s storyline.
After watching last night’s scenes, which saw Seb and Nina horrifically attacked, viewers were left devastated and sent their love to Sophie’s family.
Respect to @itvcorrie for handling tonight's episodes so delicately. Thoughts to Sophie Lancaster's family watching this tonight.
People should be allowed to walk the streets safely and be themselves without judgement, hopefully this storyline will make people think ❤️️#corrie
— Dave (@DavidMackayy) May 5, 2021
Such a sad episode. Thinking of Sophie Lancaster and her family. Showing what her and her boyfriend experienced is awful to see. Things like this shouldn’t happen @sophie_charity #corrie #SophieLancaster
— Patrick McCann (@Patr1ckMcCann) May 5, 2021
Sending love to the family and friends of #SophieLancaster tonight and always #Corrie
— TheAbstractNarwhal (@AbstractNarwhal) May 6, 2021
https://twitter.com/EliteCocoaWoman/status/1390136507739029515
That was an extremely tough watch but acted so incredibly well by every single person involved.
I think what made it so difficult was knowing it'd happened for real. My heart breaks for Sophie's family. 💔@itvcorrie #corrie #SophieLancaster #ItsOkToBeDifferent— 🌹💫Soph 💫🌹 (@SophDean92) May 5, 2021
God #corrie was emotional tonight, I’m a wreck. Remembering Sophie Lancaster throughout it all. ❤️
— Lyndus Colledge (@Lyndus) May 5, 2021
Sylvia Lancaster speaks about working with Coronation Street
Asked how she felt when she was asked by Coronation Street to help with the development of this storyline, Sylvia told Entertainment Daily and other media: “You can imagine can’t you?
Sending love to the family and friends of Sophie Lancaster tonight and always.
“You’re sat there one day, probably on a Wednesday afternoon and you get an email from Coronation Street saying ‘we’d like to speak to you.’ You think ‘What?’ You can’t believe it really.
Read more: Sophie Lancaster docudrama on BBC Three: Can I still watch it and who stars in it?
“Obviously all of us at the Foundation were so thrilled to bits and the experience has been very professional, very well looked after and obviously we understand that Coronation Street as a soap in that genre are very sensitive to issues. So we knew that Coronation Street would do a good job.
“It has to be done with sensitivity and also allowing people to see the reality behind the story which Coronation Street are particularly good at.”
Coronation Street airs on Mondays and Wednesdays 7.30pm and 8.30pm with an hour long episode at 7.30 on Fridays on ITV.
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