Coronation Street producer Iain MacLeod has promised that Geoff Metcalfe will face a comeuppance for abusing Yasmeen Nazir.
The powerful coercive control storyline took a horrifying turn this week when Yasmeen (Shelley King) was arrested for attacking Geoff (Ian Bartholomew), since police aren't yet convinced she was acting in self-defence.
Although Yasmeen is set to go before the court in upcoming scenes, the producer has told Digital Spy and other media that vile abuser Geoff will not go unpunished.
"The timelines have obviously been shunted around slightly due to the lockdown, but I think it's fair to imagine that it will certainly be this year," MacLeod said.
"What form that comeuppance takes is still in discussion. We wanted a redemptive ending ultimately for Yasmeen. She's in the thick of it at the moment and the toughest it's going to get for her is around now.
"The ending is towards the end of the year but the key thing is to impart the right message at the end of this story. There has been some very sobering correspondence to me, Ian Bartholomew and Shelley King [from real-life survivors].
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"For the sake of all those people, we have to tell the right ending with some positivity and optimism. That's our thinking at the moment but it's a little way off yet."
Coronation Street will next look at Geoff's compulsion for control over his wife through the lens of her potentially going away to prison for his attack.
"There's a fairly large chapter to come which features exactly that, the emotional turmoil that he's feeling," the producer explained. "It's a story told from Yasmeen's perspective, so we don't want it to look like we're somehow excusing Geoff's behaviour by getting too deep into his psychology or elicit any sympathy for him.
"On the other hand, there are very interesting psychological elements to an abuser's psyche and we'll be exploring those. Geoff does not find it easy having Yasmeen out of his sphere of influence and that becomes quite significant as the legal proceedings unfold."
MacLeod was also quizzed on whether Corrie writers were hopeful of ever rehabilitating Geoff as a character in the eyes of viewers.
"Typically, abusers of this type do not get better, so it would be possibly be a dangerous message to impart to our audience if we said these people do change," he said. "Even if there are a proportion of them that can and do change, the reality is that most cases don't see the perpetrator just changing the error of their ways.
"I would never want to give any real abusers in the world an opportunity to say, 'Well look at Geoff, he's managed to change his life around and I can do the same'.
"It would be a dangerous position to say that the abuser in the story is better when in most realities they aren't. I don't think we'll see any redemption for Geoff."
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7.30pm on ITV.
Organisations including Women's Aid can provide further support and information on coercive control or coercive behaviour.
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