Coronation Street has lept into the new year with huge storylines, one which will see Johnny Connor behind bars.
Johnny (Richard Hawley) has been battling with guilt over an armed robbery he committed decades ago and the horrific impact it had on the security guard Grant.
Johnny was arrested on suspicion of burglary and GBH last year and will be sentenced in the coming episodes.
One issue that the writers were keen to explore in this storyline was Johnny's MS diagnosis and how that will impact his life in prison.
Corrie boss Iain MacLeod said that the show will be exploring the medical condition as "an issue-based story".
"We were keen to do justice to the MS side of Johnny's character and experience. Perhaps at times, that has been visible in the show and at other times not," MacLeod told Digital Spy and other media.
"We felt we should start telling that story in a similar way we would other long-running medical stories, like Sinead's cancer, and investigate what life would be like for Johnny with that medical condition.
"We'll be exploring that with a little bit more of a spotlight on what that's actually like and treating it more like an issue-based story."
MacLeod said sending someone to prison with a particular medical condition adds an "extra level of difficulty" for them, so they were keen to explore that in Johnny's story.
"When we knew that we were sending the character of Johnny to prison, Richard Hawley was very keen to talk to me about how we should be exploring what it'd be like for a man with that condition behind bars.
"It's an extra level of difficulty if you do have a medical condition like this. We will 100% be investigating the truth of that."
Upcoming episodes will see Johnny's eyesight begin to fail, and on the day of Johnny's sentencing Imran asks the judge to show leniency in the sentence, citing Johnny's genuine remorse for his past actions and his poor health.
Digital Spy
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Originally Posted by lizann
