Corrie heroines tackle carjacker

Coronation Street's have-a-go heroines fight off a carjacker in a dramatic new storyline.

Rita Sullivan ends up staring down the barrel of a gun after picking up a man during a drive in the countryside.

But she turns the tables on the carjacker with the help of her passengers Blanche Hunt, Betty Williams and Emily Bishop.

The storyline will be screened later this month.

Rita's terrifying ordeal comes about after she celebrates her birthday by driving her friends beyond the borders of Weatherfield into the country.

Having gotten lost, they pull over to read a map and are approached by a man who claims to have run out of petrol. As the stranger pleads for a lift to visit his sick mother in hospital, the Weatherfield women take pity on the man and squash up to let him into the car.

No sooner have they got going again than Rita realises the man's carrier bag - which he claimed contained flowers for his ailing mother - is in fact stashed full of cash. She challenges the man and he pulls out a gun.

The stranger is soon on the receiving end of Rita's handbag. Between them, the Street veterans manage to bundle him to the floor just in time for the police, who had been chasing, to arrive and arrest him.

For Emily, the ordeal is a terrifying reminder of how her husband, Ernie, was shot dead during a robbery in 1972. But for the others, the incident turns out to have a comic twist when they then turn on Weatherfield's local reporter to make sure the press get their side of the story right.

A spokeswoman for the show said today: "It's not really a serious carjacking. Had Rita not spotted the cash, the man would have just jumped out and ran off. It is more a story of Weatherfield's have-a-go grannies than a hard-hitting dramatic storyline."