The latest dark turn in ‘Coronation Street’ villain Pat Phelan’s storyline has crossed a line in the eyes of many soap fans, with almost 400 complaining to media regulator Ofcom over particularly grisly scenes.
Last week, Phelan forced his captive Andy Carver to kill Vinny Ashford, promising him his freedom if he went through with the shooting.
However, what Andy didn’t count on was that after killing Vinny, Phelan would then turn the gun on him, with both Vinny and Andy dead by the end of the episode.
This all proved too much for certain soap fans, with Ofcom confirming they’ve received as many as 390 complaints in under a week about the scenes.
In a short statement, the TV watchdog confirmed: “We will assess these complaints before deciding whether or not to investigate.”
No matter the issue, Ofcom always assess complaints that viewers have made, before ultimately determining if they need to take the matter further, when they feel that their guidelines have been broken.
Earlier this year, ‘Coronation Street’ was cleared by Ofcom over its child grooming storyline, after Nathan Curtis was seen getting 17-year-old Bethany Platt drunk and taking her back to his house.
Ultimately, Ofcom ruled that the scene had been neither “graphic” nor “violent”, with a spokesperson declaring: “[We] took into account Coronation Street’s established role in covering challenging or distressing social issues.”
Last year, the soap was also cleared on a number of different controversial moments, including David Platt’s use of the expletive “bastard” and a joke from Tracy Barlow about the Titanic.