Coronation Street’s Bethany Platt: Her history with evil Nathan Curtis, her journalism career, and her kidnap ordeals!

Coronation Street’s Bethany Platt has got her life back on track. She’s returned to her family and Weatherfield, is happily loved up with Daniel Osbourne, and things are good.

Except she’s about to come face-to-face with evil Nathan Curtis – the man who groomed and sexually exploited her, and who she thought was safely behind bars.

So what is Bethany’s story? Here’s the lowdown on her – VERY – eventful young life in Coronation Street.

Who plays Coronation Street’s Bethany Platt?

Bethany has been played by several actresses. As a baby she was played by Mia Cookson, then by twins Emily and Amy Walton.

When Bethany came back to Weatherfield as a teenager she was portrayed by Lucy Fallon, who still plays the aspiring journalist today.

Lucy’s recently been sharing her life as a soap star in the new ITV reality show Drama Queens.

Bethany is born to teenage Sarah Platt

Bethany was a surprise arrival for teenager Sarah-Louise Platt (Tina O’Brien) who gave birth when she was just 13 years old on June 4, 2000.

Baby Bethany was at first going to be adopted, then brought up by her gran, Gail Rodwell (Helen Worth) before eventually Sarah decided she would keep her baby.

But Sarah went off the rails, dating bad boy Aidan Critchley and nearly dying in a car accident.

The realisation her daughter was almost left motherless, spurred Sarah into being a better mum and taking responsibility for her little girl.

Bethany is kidnapped – four times!

Being kidnapped once is pretty unlucky, but poor Bethany has been snatched four times.

The first was by Alison Webster. She was overcome with grief after the death of her own newborn son, Jake and took baby Bethany. She was found by Kevin Webster, handed Bethany back and then took her own life.

Bethany was safe enough until she was three and then her paternal grandmother, Brenda Ferns came into her life.

After the death of her son, Bethany’s dad, Neil, Brenda became obsessed with her granddaughter and kidnapped her so they could die together and be with Neil. It was Emily Bishop to the rescue that time.

The third kidnap was at the hands of Nathan Curtis’s crony, Mel, who was determined to keep Bethany away from testifying against her abuser and drove her to train tracks. But Bethany persuaded Mel to let her go.

Bethany’s experience with Nathan and his evil mates came back to haunt her again when abuser Neil Clifton’s daughter, Kayla arrived in town.

Determined to prove her dad’s innocence, she manipulated Bethany and Craig Tinker, and ended up tying Bethany up in her basement until she confessed she’d lied about Neil raping her.

Bethany held strong and Craig arrived to rescue her with Neil’s recorded confession to prove to Kayla her dad was a wrong’un.

Bethany takes an ecstasy tablet

When David Platt (Jack P Shepherd) was babysitting his niece, he hid ecstasy tablets he was holding for a friend in Bethany’s doll.

Of course, seven-year-old Bethany found and ate one and David made the situation worse by making her drink salt water to throw it up.

An unconscious Bethany was rushed to hospital. David confessed and was thrown out.

Bethany recovered within a few days to be bridesmaid at her mum’s wedding to Jason Grimshaw (Ryan Thomas).

Bethany’s grooming ordeal

After a stint of almost eight years in Italy, Bethany returned to Weatherfield a troubled teen in 2015.

The victim of bullying, she fell in with the wrong crowd when she met much-older Nathan (Chris Harper). He convinced her they were in love and would live happily ever after.

In fact, he was just grooming her to be part of his sex ring and had big plans to sell her off to some associates in Amsterdam.

Totally taken in by his charms, Bethany didn’t even realise he was no good when he forced her to sleep with all his mates.

Once her family realised what was really going on, they managed to get her away. But Bethany was still under Nathan’s spell and tried to run away with him. However, on the journey abroad she quickly realised her family’s warnings had been right all along. Bravely she asked a stranger for help.

Nathan was arrested and after Bethany bravely testified in court, he was sent down along with his cohorts.

Bethany’s stint as a lapdancer

Determined to take control after her grooming ordeal, Bethany started working as a lapdancer.

Wanting to make sure she said who did what to her and her body, the 17-year-old remained firm when her family found out what she was up to.

Unfortunately, memories of what Nathan had done to her continued to haunt her. She glassed a punter who was on a stag do because she thought it was Nathan! She soon went back to her salon apprenticeship job to gain some normality in her life.

Bethany and Craig Tinker

Bethany’s best friend through thick and thin has always been Craig Tinker (Colson Smith). He’s been there for her through the best and worst of times.

He was instrumental in the downfall of Neil Clifton after recording a confession on his phone from the evil police officer, even though it threatened Craig’s own career in the process.

After Craig confessed his love for her, they tried to give things a go, but soon realised they were better off as friends. They’ve not spent much time together since her latest return to the Street.

Bethany’s journalism career

Determined to make it in the cut-throat world of journalism, Bethany left Weatherfield and went to London for a glitzy job on a magazine.

Except when she returned to the cobbles at Christmas, we discovered things hadn’t gone as well as she had been claiming. In fact, she’d been sacked.

Since then she’s been snooping round Coronation Street looking for a story. She managed to properly annoy just about everyone when she wrote about Daniel, Daisy and Ryan’s love triangle, but she did uncover the fact that Daisy and Jenny had pilfered Carla’s cash to buy the Rovers.

Could she be the next editor of the Weatherfield Gazette? Who knows!

The return of Nathan Curtis

With Lauren Bolton still missing, the police decide to film a reconstruction. And in the crowd that gathers to watch, a shocked Bethany thinks she sees her abuser, Nathan. She marches off to the police station and she’s stunned to hear that he was released from prison a few months ago.

Of course, Bethany’s immediately suspicious that Nathan could be behind Lauren’s disappearance – after all, he’s got form for kidnapping young women. She and Daniel track him down on a nearby building site, where he’s working, and Bethany confronts him, accusing him of killing Lauren.

Is she right?

Read more: Complete Coronation Street cast list 2023 – meet them all here!

Coronation Street usually airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV.

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