Coronation Street spoilers follow for Friday’s (February 27) episode which is now available to stream on ITVX and YouTube.

Poor Bernie Winter (Jane Hazlegrove) has been put through the mill by creepy stalker Mal Roper (Tim Treloar), who just won’t leave her alone.

It’s been a traumatic number of weeks for the beloved cafe worker, who first encountered sinister Mal at Chariot Square hotel following Billy Mayhew’s (Daniel Brocklebank) funeral.

The identity of Mal’s attacker has been revealed – and it’s not who you might’ve thought!

After getting drunk and taking drugs with grieving Bernie, Mal made a move. Bernie rejected his advances, making it clear that she’s a happily married woman.

The two went their separate ways, no doubt thinking they’d never see each other again but they unexpectedly crossed paths when Mal was tasked with doing Roy Cropper’s (David Neilson) electrics – at the very cafe Bern worked in.

Despite Bernie reiterating that they stay out of each other’s way, Mal has refused to do so, with dark scenes earlier this week seeing him lock her in her place of work and spew a tirade of hateful comments at her after she told him she wasn’t interested.

The nightmare continued in subsequent scenes when Mal stalked Bernie in the dead of night, watching from afar as he told her that he won’t be going anywhere, which prompted terrified Bernadine to shout aloud that she would ‘kill’ him if he didn’t stay away.

Later, Kit Green (Jacob Roberts) paled when a case came across his desk, which detailed that Mal had been attacked.

Having been told by Bernie just hours prior that the electrician had been making her life a living hell, he wasted little time in investigating and got a great big shock when doctors confirmed that the villain is in a critical condition.

Bernie was subsequently arrested and held in police custody overnight, with DC Browning (Joe Hughes) convinced of her guilt, after learning of the very public threat she issued to Mal on the eponymous street.

Kit, meanwhile, desperately tried to get his mum off the charges she faced and in an unexpected turn of events, he admitted to Sarah Platt (Tina O’Brien) that he was the one who roughed Mal up.

Adamant that he didn’t overly hurt him during the altercation (Mal suffered a subsequent heart attack which led to his hospitalisation), the police detective wasn’t sure how best to handle the situation.

Sarah, however, made things quite clear for him when she stated that he cannot let his mum go to prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Hadn’t she suffered enough?

Knowing what he must do, Kit headed to the station to confess his involvement to Browning but, to his shock, Bernie was released without charge, with CCTV footage having backed up her alibi for the time of the assault.

Out of the woods, Kit kept shtum. But Bernie knew he was keeping something from her. Will she get to the truth?

Will DS Swain (Vicky Myers), for that matter? The popular detective has been taken off desk duty and is now back on the beat, so will she discover that her colleague was the one responsible for Mal’s hospitalisation?

And as for Mal, will he pull through? Are Kit’s days numbered as a detective?