CORONATION Street bosses are planning a spell behind bars for dowdy mum Gail Platt.
She is set to receive a tough 28-day jail sentence later in the year for failing to send wayward son David to school. It is believed the gripping plotline was discussed by show executives early in the year ??" and they have now decided to go ahead with the prison shocker.
A Corrie insider said: "The idea of poor Gail languishing in a jail cell would make great viewing. The repercussions on screen and off screen are just countless."
Viewers will soon see Gail (Helen Worth) struggling to keep troubled son David (Jack P Shepherd) at school.
The lad - in hot water at the moment for terrorising his mum by sending her cards he pretended were from her dead murderer husband Richard Hillman - claims he is being bullied by boys in the final year at his school, Weatherfield Comprehensive.
Gail agrees with the headmaster that he should be tutored at home until the start of the new term in September.
Ex-teacher Ken Barlow (Bill Roache) steps in to help ??" but David is still playing truant when the new school year starts.
The insider added: "As it stands, it is planned that Gail receives a letter saying she will be taken to court if David does not return to Weatherfield Comp.
"He doesn't, Gail goes to court and is told she is going down for 28 days!"
The last time Weatherfield saw one of its favourite residents behind bars was in 1998.
Innocent Deirdre Rachid (now Barlow) was left devastated at being convicted of credit card fraud. Deirdre (Anne Kirkbride) had been conned by her lover, fake pilot Jon Lindsay (Owen Aaronovitch) and a court refused to believe her story.
Her being sent to jail sparked outrage and a national campaign to Free the Weatherfield One began. Even Prime Minister Tony Blair made a tongue-in-cheek call for the Home Secretary to intervene to get her released.
After 18 days inside, Deirdre was finally freed when Lindsay's web of lies began to unravel and his bigamous wife turned up on Ken Barlow's doorstep.
Source: The Mirror
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