Coronation Street's Stephen Reid is to be involved in a horror crash as he tries to keep his murder secret under wraps.
Stephen - played by Todd Boyce - brutally murdered Leo Thompkins by pushing him off the Underworld balcony to his death in scenes airing last month. Since then, he has managed to get rid of the body and has forged text messages pretending Leo is doing well in Canada and had just decided to make the trip there on his own without his girlfriend Jenny.
The soap has been busy filming new scenes for Todd's character, and in new photos, obtained by Digital Spy, Stephen can be seen getting caught up in a nasty exchange with a group of thugs as he tries to make a delivery.
As he heads out on his delivery bike, it is targeted by a gang. In another photo, he speeds off on the bike - but crashes and ends up lying still on the tarmac. Is Stephen injured - or will he live to see another day?
It comes after Todd teased Stephen could be pushed to murder once again, following the death of Leo.
When asked if Stephen would kill again, he said: "I don't know, I'm not sure. I think he's capable of just killing more people and going on and doing that, but watch this space," before quipping of his fellow stars: "In the green room, I've been offered a lot of cups of tea by a lot of people who wanna find out how long I'm going to be doing the show, and how many people I am gonna kill."
Soap producer Iain MacLeod also teased more about the "desperate and dark" lengths Stephen has gone to to keep up his games.
"He will continue to get more and more desperate and more and more dark as the story unfolds," Iain shared, "The beauty of his character really is that he's got this huge longevity in terms of his connection to the show and to a heritage family, but actually he is a bit of a blank canvas. If you think back through his archive scenes, we don't really know a lot about him.
"So we thought well, actually, if we're gonna fill in those blanks and we're gonna learn more about him shouldn't we make him dark, dangerous, interesting and scheming? He's going to be a wrong'un, and they will be proved to be right in no small measure ... He's every bit as desperate and dangerous as they predicted when he first returned."
Stephen actor Todd had previously explained how he continues to feel guilty following the murder.
"He goes back to the scene of the crime. I mean, I think he's guilt ridden and he's at the back of Underworld and he sees Leo's phone, which they were scuffling over and it had been forgotten about on the ground," he told The Mirror and other press.
"He manages to make it seem like Leo is in Canada. He sneaks into the pub because he overhears from Gemma that his suitcase and the passport are in the back room. And so I filmed that the other day. It's very creepy sneaking into an empty pub and doing it, so everyone thinks well, the passport and his suitcases are gone. He's sending text messages too."
