Maria Connor (Samia Longchambon) hid the depth of her suffering after another difficult day in tonight’s Coronation Street (13th July).
The mainstay has been left in fear in recent weeks as online trolls began to torment her with death threats, with one user even creating a deep-fake video of her. Suspicion fell on refuse leader Jimmy, who ended up in an altercation with Maria’s furious husband Gary Windass (Mikey North) when he began heckling Maria at a council press event.
In the latest instalment of the ITV soap, Maria was understandably anxious as she attempted to carry on with life as normal. Kelly Neelan (Millie Gibson) offered to keep her guardian company as she attended a council function; but when a man approached Maria, claiming to work for environmental health, things took a sinister turn when he complimented her on ‘her’ video.
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Maria left the event feeling harassed and violated, but as she called Gary to fill him in on what had happened, she received a notification on her phone, telling her that a third party device was travelling with her at that very moment.
Rifling through her bag to try and find the tracker, Maria was startled by approaching footsteps and took aim with a can of hairspray – only to find she had actually sprayed poor George Shuttleworth (Tony Maudsley).
George recovered enough to realise that Maria was in a fragile state, and he took her to the café where Nina Lucas (Mollie Gallagher) soon found the tracker. She explained that the item was supposed to help people find missing things like keys, but that the tracker is often misused.
Maria stamped on the tracker to destroy it, wanting to put a stop to whoever was behind it. But Gary pointed out that they could have handed it over to the police. Despite this, the couple headed over to the station where they told an officer all about Maria’s distressing situation. The female officer was sympathetic, but added that the use of a tracker wasn’t illegal – shockingly!
She did, however, encourage them to keep an eye on anything that could help identify the worst of the online trolls. At home, Maria worried about the impact of her being targeted as she checked that Kelly hadn’t been receiving any troubling messages.
Maria then painted on a smile, but secretly phoned son Liam’s school, lying that he was unwell and wouldn’t be going to school the following day.
With Maria choosing to mask just how badly affected she is by her stalking horror, will keeping Liam at home help her, or is her panic only set to worsen?
Read more:
- Maria’s fears worsen over trolling in Coronation Street
- Coronation Street’s Maria traumatised by trolls
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