Asha Alahan (Tanisha Gorey) has been struggling since she had the shift from hell on Coronation Street.
During a special episode that focused on a day in the young paramedic’s working life, we saw Asha being subjected to horrific racial abuse and violence from a woman she was trying to help.
‘I think she just feels like the job might not be right for her then she faces a racist attack and everything feels like it’s coming crashing down,’ Tanisha Gorey told us.
Since the incident, Asha’s mental health has suffered with the character enduring panic attacks. She’s becoming increasingly withdrawn, and in episodes to be aired soon this is noticed by Bernie (Jane Hazlegrove) who questions Dev (Jimmi Harkishin) about his daughter’s health.
Dev says that Asha has been spending more and more time in her room. Bernie’s plan to solve this is to get Asha involved in something outside the house and she convinces her to help Ryan (Ryan Prescott) with a careers fair at the hotel.
By terrible coincidence, the guest speaker at the careers fair happens to be Naomi, the woman who abused Asha.
Bravely, Asha confronts the woman, reminding her that she tried to help her when she was drunk but all she got in return was Naomi abusing her, spitting at her and throwing a bottle. Naomi denies all of this and warns Asha that she needs to be careful about making allegations against her.
Shaken, Asha returns home in tears and tells Bernie what happened.
Bernie is not a person to let someone get away with being abusive to a member of her family, and she grimly heads out. Normally she would go in all guns blazing, but she takes some advice from Kit (Jacob Roberts) – so handy to have a police officer for a son – who says it’s only Asha’s word against Naomi’s so it would be difficult to bring charges.
At the careers fair, Bernie gets her hands on Naomi’s laptop, having thought of a cunning plan. As Naomi takes the stage to give her presentation she clicks on the first slide and can’t believe what she’s seeing, while the audience is in uproar.
