Valentine shock for Corrie's Steve

Things are just getting worse and worse for Corrie's Steve McDonald as estranged wife Karen files for divorce.

10:42 11 January 2005

Things are just getting worse and worse for Corrie's Steve McDonald as estranged wife Karen files for divorce.

The constant bickering between Karen and ex-lover Tracy Barlow, the mother of his child, was bad enough.

His wife, played by Suranne Jones, 26, then set fire to his car, leading him to tell her to leave him forever.

But the cab boss, played by Simon Gregson, 30, is beginning to miss Karen and secretly hopes they might get back together.

When two envelopes come through his door on Valentine's Day his spirits lift.

One is, as expected, from Tracy, played by Kate Ford, 27, who has been flirting with him ever since her archrival left.

But when he opens the second it is not a love letter from Karen but one from her solicitors asking for a divorce.

"For Steve this is a hammer blow to the heart," an ITV insider told the Daily Star.

"He really doesn't know where to go from here."

When Steve reads the letter, he is distraught, telling cab firm controller Eileen Grimshaw: "I'm a sucker.

"I thought Karen was coming back to me and there was a chance of a new life together.

"Now I get a letter from her solicitor saying she's starting a divorce. I was an idiot."