Hollyoaks child killers' plot 'brave', says Kevin
Hollyoaks star Kevin Sacre has said it's brave of the soap to attempt a controversial child killer storyline. This month it will emerge that Loretta Jones (Melissa Walton) and her old friend Chrissy (Amber Hodgkiss) killed a child when they were 12 and have been living under false names. Kevin praised the plot despite some people pointing out that the plot has echoes of James Bulger's murder, which saw 10-year-olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables kill the two-year-old in Merseyside in 1993, before being locked up and released under new identities. Kevin, whose character Jake Dean is dating Loretta in the soap, said: "I think the fact that it's the sort of thing that happens in real life means it's something that should be addressed. Anyone who buries their head in the sand is a bit naive. And I think soap is a medium where you can explore issues of real life. "I think it's brave they're doing it. I'm looking forward to being involved in it. My own personal views don't really come in to it. As an actor it's very exciting to be involved in something like that." A Hollyoaks spokesman previously insisted the storyline was not based on any real-life case, adding: "We take very seriously our responsibility to tackle sensitive issues in an appropriate way." Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk’s weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.