Corrie hints Curtis Delamere could steal from Steve McDonald

Coronation Street spoilers follow.

Coronation Street will hint that Curtis Delamere could do the unthinkable later this month, as he appears to contemplate stealing money from Steve McDonald that is intended for Oliver's charity fund.

Curtis (Sam Retford), who is engaged to Steve's daughter Emma Brooker (Alexandra Mardell), has appeared to be the perfect partner since getting together with Emma. However, fans recently discovered that he has actually been lying to her all along about having a life-threatening heart condition.

A recent chat with Curtis led to a doctor suggesting that he could have a Factitious Disorder, which is a mental illness whereby a person pretends to be ill to others – but he definitely doesn't have a heart condition.

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As Christmas approaches, Steve (Simon Gregson) is delighted to find out that he has finally met his £100,000 target for his late son Oliver's fund.

He made up the final £4,000 of the target with help from Curtis, who claimed to have taken on the gruelling Three Peaks challenge to raise the cash – but viewers are aware that, in reality, Curtis didn't take part in the challenge at all.

Unware that Curtis has been lying about both the challenge and his health, a drunken Steve hands Curtis his bank card and PIN and asks him to transfer the £100,000 that has been raised into Oliver's charity account.

Back at home, Curtis opens up his laptop and takes out Steve's bank card. Can he really be trusted after all his lies, or is Curtis about to break the hearts of Emma and her family?

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Curtis has also lied to Emma about his family situation, and next week Emma will finally find out the truth after an accident with Ruby Dobbs (Macy Alabi) leads her to discover that her fiancé's 'heart medication' is actually a jar of vitamins.

Actor Sam recently spoke to Digital Spy about his character's big story, explaining that he was attracted to the role of Curtis because "certainly in British television it's not really something that has been spoken about, certainly not at this length".

He also spoke about how he approached playing Curtis, having known the truth about his character since the beginning.

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"When you build a relationship with the character and you start to fall in love with him a little bit, you have to then develop a huge amount of empathy for things that on face value seem black or white, good or bad. You'd look at it on paper and think, 'That's a bad thing to do'," he said.

"It made me really quite empathic to Curtis. I tried to delve into that and make sure he was honoured. All of those decisions he was making came from a place of hurt and a place of self-loathing, in a way. It really made you fall in love with him."

Coronation Street airs these scenes on Friday, December 17 at 7.30pm on ITV.

If you've been affected by the issues raised in this story, organisations who can offer support include Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org) or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to visit mentalhealth.gov.