Theo Silverton (James Cartwright) finds himself in court in upcoming Coronation Street episodes, as he faces a hearing to decide whether he’ll be allowed to see his kids.

The proceedings don’t start out well, with Theo’s wife Danielle (Natalie Anderson)’s barrister emphasising Theo’s violent temper, including the incident where Theo accidentally hit his son Miles while intervening in a fight between Miles (Lewis William Magee) and Todd Grimshaw (Gareth Pierce).

Theo insists he hurt Miles by accident and would never be violent towards his children. As he’s speaking, Danielle’s partner Noah (Richard Winsor) starts muttering under his breath.

Noah is a character from Theo’s past who was involved in putting his through so-called conversion therapy to try to ‘cure’ him of being gay. The experience traumatised Theo and he still has panic attacks when he thinks of what he went through. It’s also contributed to the self-loathing that he struggled with when he first started getting to know Todd.

So on hearing Noah’s comments, Todd loses his temper and lunges at him – which is exactly the reaction Noah was trying to provoke. As Todd is escorted out, Noah is smug – and Theo is left terrified that the incident will have cost him the chance to have access to his children.

Following the hearing, Noah finds Theo and Todd at the bistro and informs them that Danielle won’t be backing down in her opposition to the kids spending time with Theo. He then makes some homophobic jibes, hoping to bait Theo into attacking him.

When Theo manages to control himself and doesn’t react, Noah is fuming and storms out.

But later, Danielle arrives and she has some shocking news about Noah that changes everything.

In the aftermath of this, Todd is confused by Theo’s reaction to Danielle’s news and he tells Maria (Samia Longchambon) that he doesn’t understand why Theo’s feelings towards Noah are more complex than the outright hatred he would have expected, given what Noah put Theo through.

Unfortunately, Theo is eavesdropping on this conversation – and he’s not happy that Todd has been airing his opinions about Theo and Noah to other people.

‘Todd’s constantly calibrating what is normal and what is acceptable in the relationship,’ Gareth Pierce told us. ‘So very slowly things that are already crossing the line, that are already massive red flags are becoming slowly acceptable. That’s only going to get worse now.’