Coronation Street favourite ‘forced to leave’ after major attack

Coronation Street’s Ken Barlow was attacked by his own son on Wednesday night’s episode. The soap legend, who has been played by William Roache since the very first episode of the ITV programme aired in 1960, was at the centre of yet more drama as Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard) continued to spiral.

The schoolteacher is coming to terms with the fact that his ex-girlfriend Megan had an illicit relationship with a student, and in the weeks since, has turned to booze to cope as Jodie Ramsey (Olivia Frances Brown) began to, for some reason, spread hate about him anonymously online.

When he found out that it was potential girlfriend Jodie behind the account, which was known as Truthteller, Daniel hit the bottle again and, whilst he was passed out, his young son Bertie set about using the microwave and accidently started a small fire. Bertie then took himself off to Ken’s house, and Daniel’s uncle Adam went over to the flat to sort things out.

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On the latest instalment of the world’s longest-running TV soap, Daniel was awoken by a phone call from the school asking where Bertie was and instantly panicked when he found that the seven-year-old was nowhere to be seen. He wandered round the streets looking for him, only to be found by his sister Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford), who took some sort of pleasure in winding him up about it as she knew the little one was safe at number one.

When she eventually took Daniel back to the Barlow household, Bertie was sitting at the dining room table, content and watching something on a tablet. But what played out was a vicious row between Daniel and his family, unable to take his erratic behaviour any longer, especially as it had placed Bertie in danger.

Things took a nasty turn when Adam brought up the subject of Bertie’s mum Sinead (Katie McGlynn), who died shortly after his birth in 2019 following a battle with cervical cancer. Adam said: “When Sinead died, what did you tell Bertie? You told him she fell asleep and she never woke up. Well, guess what? What happened last night, huh?

“You fell asleep, and he couldn’t wake you up.” Taken aback, Daniel raised his arm to punch Adam in the face, but accidentally hit Ken, who was standing behind him, knocking him straight onto the sofa.

As a shocked Daniel tried to make sense with what just happened, Ken said: “I’d like you to leave now. But… Just go… and grow up. Think you’ll be able to manage that? Because whatever you’re doing isn’t working, and I refuse to be caught in the crossfire.”

Daniel tried to reason with his father, but Ken insisted: “I said go, and I meant it.” When Daniel protested that he would need to take Bertie with him, Ken was having none of it and sent him home on his own.

Speaking about the tense scenes, actor Rob Mallard, who has played Daniel for almost a decade, said: “It’s like everything is spiralling. They all call him out. They corner him in the Barlows and I think he just feels trapped, he goes to lash out at Adam and he catches Ken. It’s always Ken that he seems to hurt.”

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“It’s like he’s betrayed the only woman that was loyal to him, because he promised Sinead that he would put himself second and Bertie first always.

“And yet he’s allowed recent events to push Bertie to second, third, fourth place in his mind. So basically the only woman that didn’t betray him, he feels like he’s let her down now posthumously.

“It’s 100% a wake up call. He’s completely beside himself, he thinks that he’s going to have his kid taken off him and again it’s all to do with keeping a promise that he made to Sinead.

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“I think he could keep going further. Once someone gets a bit of mud on them, you might as well get properly dirty. I think that in terms of Daniel’s character, if he’s going to go off the rails, he should go off them properly, possibly even lose custody of Bertie temporarily, really teach him a lesson.”

Coronation Street airs Monday to Friday at 8:30pm on ITV1 and is available to stream from 7am on ITV X.