Heartbreaking moment Coronation Street's Lauren's fate is sealed in brutal murder story

Coronation Street's troubled Lauren Bolton (played by Cait Fitton) was trying to turn her life around after enduring the trauma of her far-right extremist father's jail sentence. She was employed at Roy's Rolls, but being falsely accused of stealing from the café forced her to break that lifeline and lured her into risky prostitution instead.

In a throwback detailing just how it all began, Express.co.uk has pinpointed the moment when her heartbreak at being accused of a crime she never committed is healed by receiving a gift from a manipulative "boyfriend". Her eyes shone with excitement as she opened the jewellery box to reveal a sparkly necklace - and viewers didn't know it at the time, but she was being lured into what would become her death trap.

Shona Platt (played by Julia Goulding) had made the accusation of theft, and when she denied it, she grilled her on how, after pleading poverty a short time earlier, she'd been able to buy an "expensive watch" for her ex, Max Turner (Paddy Bever). Keen to keep her mystery "boyfriend" a secret, she blurted out a lie about a job at a call centre.

However, quick-thinking Shona didn't buy it, pointing out that the company she was referring to had been making some employees redundant, not taking on new ones. "I don't think you're a bad kid deep down, but clearly the temptation is too much with you handling cash all day," she told her.

"I'm going to have to take you off the rota, for now at least." Lauren broke down in tears of exasperation at the injustice of not being believed, which had come so soon after being associated with her criminal father had caused her to be shunned.

"All my life I've been judged unfairly... I thought you were different!" she exclaimed, before angrily retorting: "You can shove your job!"

Yet just seconds after storming out of the café, she arrived back at her own home and found a package that had been slipped underneath the door.

Her previously tearful face broke into a soft smile as she glimpsed the jewellery, not realising that this was a pivotal moment in a chain of events that would seal her brutal fate.

With no-one to turn to after Shona's rejection, Lauren was embroiled further in the world of a man we now know was Joel Deering (Callum Lill).

Flashbacks on the show confirmed that Lauren was killed by Joel after things turned non-consensual between them, and she was heard pleading: "I don't wanna do this anymore!"

However, before the big reveal, the identity of the murderer was so carefully concealed that even Callum Lill's closest family members had no idea what was happening.

The actor videoed his shocked grandmother's reaction, admitting that she'd found out at the same time as all the other viewers of the ITV soap.

In a post published on TikTok, she reeled as she expressed shock that his character had "battered" Lauren, quizzing: "You mean to tell me my grandson’s a killer?"