Coronation Street's Bernie catfishes Kel: "She won't stop until he's brought to justice" says Jane Hazelgrove
Paul's mum takes risky action to get revenge on his abuser
Coronation Street's Bernie Winter (Jane Hazelgrove) has taken a risky move to get justice for son Paul Foreman (Peter Ash) after her attempt to take down his childhood abuser Kel Hinchley (Joseph Alessi) failed.
On Friday 6th December she launched a public attack on her evil ex at the shopping centre where he works as a security guard, only to later learn there is insufficient evidence against Kel meaning Paul's case won't be going any further.
Taking the law into her own hands, Bernie secretly logged on to Kel's DJ coaching website, created a fake profile of a 14-year-old boy and contacted the man who groomed Paul and put him through a horrific ordeal throughout his teenage years, posing as a young lad needing tutoring.
Catfishing, the term given to engaging with someone online under a fictional digital persona often to expose wrongdoing, is a risky business and could badly backfire on Bernie, but Hazelgrove says her alter ego is on a mission to atone for bringing Kel into her family's life.
"She is full of anger and guilt and in a complete state of shock and fury. Bernie didn't have a clue what was going on all those years ago, now all the pieces are falling into place and it's not a nice place to be. She's full of self-loathing."
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Bernie is keeping her plot to catch Kel out to herself, and next week arranges for him and fake persona 'Alfie' to meet up - how far is she prepared to go?
"Being the kind of woman she is, Bernie is going to try and solve this in Bernie fashion," continues Hazelgrove, "which of course will not work out well. She's probably had quite a lot of history with the police in her 50 years on the planet and doesn't have much faith in them to sort this out, which is why she reacts like this.
"She knows they're under-resourced but Bernie thinks this should the number one case. Kel, being the clever manipulator he is, has hidden his tracks.
"Even though she could be jeopardising Paul's case further, she's not going to stop because she is full of fury."
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