Coronation Street star Tina O’Brien has explained why her character Sarah Barlow tries to plant evidence on evil Nathan Curtis.

Sarah takes the ongoing Lauren Bolton investigation into her own hands next week as she attempts to plant one of the teenager’s old hair bobbles in Nathan’s work van.

Sarah’s daughter Bethany has repeatedly tried to raise the alarm that Nathan could have been responsible for Lauren’s disappearance and presumed murder. Nathan was jailed for grooming Bethany in 2017.

In recent scenes, Sarah teamed up with her ex-partner Gary Windass and bribed Nathan with £10,000 to leave town. However, she’s about to discover that Nathan has no intention of going anywhere when he taunts her over wasting the money.

Speaking about the upcoming scenes, Tina explained: “Sarah is so upset and angry. Nathan’s literally in her face and he’s just vile – he doesn’t care about anything or anyone, and if anything I think he quite enjoys it.

“He’s basically saying that he’ll do what he wants, he’s not going to leave Weatherfield, he’s disgusting. She’s devastated, she feels like she’s done everything she can to get him out of Weatherfield, then he just throws it in her face. He took the money, now he’s making it clear he’s got no intention of going anywhere, he’s horrible.

“Sarah just feels completely helpless, then this plan brews in her mind and she’s determined to do anything she can to rid Bethany of him.

“She sees how he’s affecting Bethany, she knows how she fell apart last time, the trauma she went through and she’s really concerned that Bethany won’t feel safe in Weatherfield now. She doesn’t want her to always be looking over her shoulder to the point that she feels that her only option is to leave again.

“It does get to the point where Bethany says ‘I think I’m going to have to leave, I can’t stay’ and Sarah’s devastated by that. She’s only just got her daughter back and she wants her to be close by where she can have a relationship with her.”

Sarah finds the old hair bobble among some items that Lauren previously left behind at the Platt house.

As Sarah sets about trying to leave the bobble in Nathan’s van, new detective Kit Green intervenes to stop her.

Kit later finds himself compromised when one of Lauren’s hairs is found in the van and used as evidence against Nathan. Meanwhile, Daniel Osbourne finds out what Sarah did and fears that the real murderer could now walk free if Nathan isn’t guilty.