Coronation Street’s Sean Wilson explains reason for exit as Martin Platt
"I've been low all the way through."
Coronation Street‘s Sean Wilson has explained the reason behind his exit from the ITV soap.
It was announced earlier this summer that the actor was due to reprise his role as Martin Platt as part of long-time co-star Helen Worth’s departure storyline this Christmas, though it was later confirmed by an ITV spokesperson that he had “stepped down from filming for personal reasons”.
During a new interview with The Sun, Wilson said that he had been axed from the soap due to a pending inquiry into an alleged indecent assault from 1997. Police cleared Wilson last week and said there would be no further action over the claim.
“I had no idea who had made this complaint or anything about it but I lost my job. It’s been hell. I’ve been low all the way through,” Wilson said.
He explained that he got the call to reprise the role of Martin in February and “jumped at the chance”, adding: “Helen and I go back a long way and I wanted to be the person that she left with — and I think the viewers did as well.”
However, after filming his scenes in July, he said he received an email from soap bosses at the start of August that “truly stunned” him.
They requested a meeting with him in which he said he was “confronted with three executives who said they had received an allegation that I had put my hands up a woman’s skirt.”
“They also said police had contacted them and told them they had referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS),” he continued, explaining that he was told “they had to cut the contract and protect their cast.”
“I told them I knew it hadn’t happened and I deserved a chance to convince them. But they said once it had become a police matter they couldn’t do anything,” he said.
Coronation Street has told Digital Spy it has no comment to make at this time.
Wilson said the woman who made the allegation had “worked in connection with the show”, but he wasn’t aware of any further details regarding the case until his lawyers got into contact with an officer assigned to it.
According to Wilson, the detective said there were no witnesses and the person who made the complaint “hadn’t told anyone about it, and they couldn’t say when it happened in 1997.”
“I was also shocked to hear the allegation was entirely different from what ITV had said,” he claimed. “The police said it was a touch on the backside over the individual’s jeans, on one occasion, and not a hand up a woman’s skirt.
He also told The Sun that the police said they “had never contacted ITV and it couldn’t have been passed to the CPS as they hadn’t even assigned the case to an officer at that point.”
Sean added that he was “relieved beyond belief” on November 21 when police said there would be no further action taken over the allegation.
