A Coronation Street storyline depicting the rape of character Carla Connor has led to an 800 per cent increase in calls to Britain’s major rape crisis centre.
The flagship centre for Rape Crisis in south London, which runs the national helpline, experienced the spike after the story aired last week.
About 10 million viewers tuned in to watch the episode of the long-running soap in which Frank Foster raped Connor after she called off their wedding.
Extra volunteers have been drafted in to cope with the increased number of calls.
The Rape Crisis encouraged women to keep on calling if they had failed to get through.
Rosa Knight, a coordinator at Rape Crisis South London, said the realistic portrayal had hit home.
“Though other programs have run similar storylines, the response for the Coronation Street storyline has been like nothing we’ve experienced before,” she said.
“It is so important for mainstream shows to tackle these important issues in a well-researched way and it appears the program makers worked hard to do just that.”
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