Coronation Street star Christopher Harper has confirmed that he has left his role as paedophile Nathan Curtis.
Chris, 47, returned to the cobbles earlier this year to reprise his role as Bethany Platt’s (Lucy Fallon) abuser.
In a shock soap twist, he was revealed to be a subscriber of Lauren Bolton’s (Cait Fitton) O-Vidz account amid her disappearance.
Nathan very quickly became prime suspect, after running into Bethany and her boyfriend Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard), and her mum Sarah (Tina O’Brien).
Convinced that he was behind Lauren vanishing, the residents tracked him down to a building site and warned him to leave Weatherfield.
Gary Windass (Mikey North) attacked him, and later used money from the sale of Underworld to bribe him into leaving. Sarah then plotted to plant evidence in his work van, but was caught in the act by bent copper Kit Green (Jacob Roberts).
Desperate to be the one that ‘solved’ the case, he ordered Sarah away before placing Lauren’s hair bobble himself.
He was arrested for breaching his restraining order, and after being represented by scheming solicitor Joel Deering (Calum Lill), who was the man actually responsible, was sent down.
In the last week we’ve seen Sarah questioned by DS Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) over her involvement in his framing.
But it seems that Nathan’s reign of terror is firmly over – as actor Chris is taking to the stage in a new touring production of the play ‘Art’.
‘Coronation Street is not a place for the journey of a paedophile to recover and become loved,’ he told Digital Spy.
‘That’s not a thing you should be doing on a soap. And so, I was absolutely adamant that if Nathan ever came back, then he mustn’t be forgiven. But I did also know that it was about time he would be coming out [of prison], so I did wonder.’
He continued: ‘When I got the call from the producers, it smacked me sideways. I was shaken, because the story was so emotional at the time, and it made such a difference to my life, the people I met through it.
‘So, coming back to Nathan was quite an emotional journey for me, to be honest.’
Confirming his exit, Chris continued: ‘I’m definitely not going back, but never say never, I suppose! I genuinely do not want him to have a forgiveness arc. So, I don’t know why he’d keep coming back to Weatherfield.
‘It’s Bethany’s journey, not his. It’s got to be about Bethany’s life, and I think he’s done his time.’
In his initial stint, which began in 2016, he was imprisoned for raping the teen, and grooming her over a period of several months.
She was employed at his tanning salon, 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, Bethany fell madly in love with him and Sarah, who was wary of their age-gape, 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.
