Coronation Street viewers have recently seen Amy Barlow (Elle Mulvaney) suffer a horrifying rape ordeal at the hands of Aaron Sandford (James Craven).
Aaron took advantage of Amy after she passed out, drunk, making the decision to have sex with her despite her being unable to consent.
Following this terrifying event, Amy struggled to come to terms with what had happened, and kept the ordeal to herself for quite a while.
However, she eventually confided in mum Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford), who convinced her to report Aaron to the police.
After an arduous questioning process, Amy was given the heart breaking news that her case had been dropped due to a lack of evidence, leaving Aaron to walk free.
Unfortunately, this outcome is not uncommon in rape cases, as Elle Mulvaney revealed to us.
Reflecting on the statistics, she explained how important it was for Coronation Street to reflect the real life experiences of rape and sexual assault survivors.
‘I think [reflecting reality is] one thing that soaps do really well.’ Elle told us. ‘It’s about having the truth behind the storyline.
‘You’ve got to remember that we’ve worked with lots of researchers and our research team has worked with the charity The School’s Consent Project, and they told us about how rare it is that a case would go to trial.
‘It’s something minuscule like 1% of cases actually get to trial, which is just ridiculous. And that’s obviously of reported rapes, and there’s a statistic where it’s something like 90% of rapes don’t even get reported.
‘So, I think as a show we would be doing victims an injustice if we hadn’t portrayed that truly. I think we have to remain true, and if people were watching the show and saw that Amy’s case went straight to trial, I don’t think that would ring true.’
She went onto explain the importance of having someone for viewers to look to for encouragement, who may have experienced something similar to them.
‘I think it’s a lot more encouraging for survivors of sexual assault and rape to see a story which is similar to theirs, because then they can confide in the characters and they can see somebody else who’s going through perhaps what they went through. Which, obviously we don’t want anyone to go through what Amy had to go through, but unfortunately it’s all too common.’
This storyline has sparked up a lot of discussion online, with many people hailing Elle’s performance and praising the show for tackling such difficult topics.
Elle revealed how she wanted this story to become a talking point in order to educate people on the topic of consent.
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‘[Starting discussions] was probably what I would say is the main aim with the storyline, so to see such a big reaction to the storyline is exactly what we wanted.’ She revealed.
‘I’ve seen lots of people coming forward about their own stories or wanting to discuss how they would go about having those conversations with their kids or their friends, and I think that’s really important.
‘I’ve had a lot of people reach out and say, ‘I’ve got a young son, I don’t know what to do. Do I have this conversation?’ If just one person can start having these open conversations about consent, then I think the stories done what we wanted it to do.’
She went onto reveal how this storyline has even sparked conversation within her own peer group.
‘When I told my friends about getting the storyline, everyone was like, ‘wow, this is so important’ and it did spark that conversation where we were talking about consent and about how, yes, Amy is drunk, so that should have been a factor in Aaron stopping doing what he did.
‘I think it’s quite interesting to realise that consent is so much more than just yes and no. I think having it as this big area of discussion, because there’s many factors which mean that somebody doesn’t consent, is really important to discuss.’
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