Life sentence for Corrie's Tracy

Coronation Street's Tracy Barlow has been found guilty for the murder of boyfriend Charlie Stubbs.

In a gripping climax to the ITV1 soap, Tracy, played by Kate Ford, was given a 15 year jail sentence for hitting her boyfriend with an ornament.

In last night's first episode, Tracy closed her eyes as the verdict was delivered. Her mouth dropped when the jury foreman said she had been found guilty of murder.

Her mother Deirdre, who was sensationally jailed in 1998 for a fraud she did not commit, burst into tears in the public gallery as her daughter continued to deny her crime, shouting: "No, you have got it wrong. I am not a monster."

Two endings to the court case had been filmed, but producers decided she shouldn't be let off.

A spokesman said: "Coronation Street is a moral show where cheats and murderers rarely prosper, so there was no way Tracy could ever get away with this crime."

This is the last time that fans will see Tracy as she turns her back on her family when they refuse to fund an appeal for her. Ford has now left the show.

Early figures suggested that the first episode featuring the verdict attracted most viewers.

A spokeswoman for the National Grid said it recorded a 1,600 megawatt surge in electricity demand at 8pm, as it ended.

But she said that by the end of the second episode, the demand had fallen back to 730 megawatts.

The spokeswoman said that this is less than a third of the demand recorded by EastEnders when it screened the episode Who Shot Phil?, which pulled in 2,220 megawatts.

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