Stalker Mal Roper (Tim Treloar) claims to love Bernie Winter (Jane Hazelgrove). He’s got a funny way of showing it – by falsely accusing one beloved Coronation Street resident of assault.

The property market must be crashing in Weatherfield right now, because the street is so stuffed with villain’s and wrong’uns, it’s a miracle that anybody else is still living there.

We’ve got child predator Megan Walsh (Beth Nixon), domestic abuser Theo Silverton (James Cartwright), acid tongued murderer/landlady Maggie Driscoll (Pauline McLynn),

bunny-boiling cuckoo-in-the-nest Jodie Ramsey (Olivia Frances-Brown), and of course, the Worst Webster himself, liar, cheat and all-round sleazebucket Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard).

Mal is awake – which is bad news for someone…(

With a rogue’s gallery that large, you have to do something truly awful to stand out in the Corrie bad guy field… for instance, stalking our beloved Bernie Winter.

Mal first met Bernie during a boozy night out where she was out on a bender to cope with the death of her close friend, Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank).

While Mal was clearly interested in sharing more than a few shots of sambuca, Bernie’s a married woman and refused to do the dirty on Dev. However, that didn’t stop her from indulging in a spot of illegal drug taking with her new friend. In the morning, she woke with a killer hangover and a burning desire to never see Mal again.

No such luck.

Mal arrived on Weatherfield to accuse Roy Cropper (David Nielson) of being the fancy man of his mysterious wife Alice. However, he ended up offering his services to Roy as an electrician and repairing some dodgy wiring in his flat. This of course, was merely a excuse to stay in Bernie’s backyard. The only dodgy wiring is in Mal’s brain.

The unstable cable guy has been badgering Bernie and following her like a lost puppy in a desperate attempt to be with her. When she rebuffed his advances, he turned all Fatal Attraction. Reaching breaking point, the no-nonsense co-manager of Roy’s Rolls warned Mal that he better back off – or she’d kill him. Unimpressed by the threat, Mal laughed that he wasn’t going anywhere…

.. cut to Mal being assaulted and left for dead by a mystery attacker.

While the finger of suspicion was pointed at Bernie, the real culprit is none other than her son, Cobbles Copper Kit Green (Jacob Roberts).

After his mother finally confided in her lad about the horrifying extent of Mal’s obsession, the red mist descended on Kit and he beat the living daylights out of the slimy stalker… only for Mal to suffer a heart attack.

Now he’s regained consciousness, the villain remembers all too well that Kit was the one who put him in hospital. But he’s not above throwing someone else under the busy for the crime if it serves his twisted purposes, and upcoming episodes of Coronation Street the unhinged electrician do just that, with severe consequences for one unlucky Corrie legend.

When Mal swings by the police station, he reports to Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers) that he’s starting to remember some details of that night and knows who attacked him.

So when Kit gets win of this, he and Bernie are plunged into panic, dreading the thought of being sent to prison by Mal…

… however, it soon becomes clear that the unhinged obsessive is targeting Bernie’s husband, Dev!

In a sickeningly manipulative move, Mal plans to blackmail Bernie into spending a sordid night with him by threatening to put Dev behind bars for assault.

Will Bernie take Mal’s indecent proposal to save her husband?