Hollyoaks star Kieron Richardson has revealed his character Ste Hay may never forgive himself, after a terror attack orchestrated by a far-right group he was a part of left one character seriously injured.
Ste has been groomed by far-right extremists Stuart and Jonny for months, with them manipulating him into believing their extreme and racist viewers.
The group has been targeting the Maaliks, a Muslim family in the village, for a while and recent scenes saw things take a horrifying turn.
After being radicalised, Ste was encouraged to take action against Muslims but the plan spiraled out of control when the group planned to use an explosive device, with Jonny deciding to set it off at The Loft nightclub packed with people.
The device accidentally exploded in his back garden, next door to where the Maaliks live - with Yazz left injured and since suffering hearing loss in the fallout.
Ste has since grown to realise he's been manipulated and that his hatred for the family was never about their religion until the boys arrived, but was in fact because of his grief over the death of his sister Tegan a year ago.
As viewers reeled from the shocking scenes, Ste actor Kieron exclusively told Mirror Online that he wasn't sure his character would ever be able to forgive himself for getting involved with the far-right group.
He explained: "I don’t think he ever will be able to forgive himself, not just for the Yazz situation but the horror he put the Maalik family through in general."
Kieron added: "I know we keep going back to Tegan's death and how Misbah shouldn't have operated on his sister, but she did try to help at the end of the day with a broken hand or not, she did try to save Tegan's life.
"The family meant no harm and Misbah didn’t meant to kill Tegan, and he needs to understand that.
"I don’t think he's ever gonna get over this actually, I think it will be something that will always be with him. The fact that he was groomed to hate someone."
On what's to come, Kieron continued: "It's now about him coming to terms with how he got into that situation and how he escapes the far-right, cos he doesn’t want to be a part of it anymore."
It looks as though Ste will struggle to settle back into the village when the time comes, with it expected to be a long process before he's anywhere near who he used to be.
Hollyoaks airs weeknights at 6:30pm on Channel 4, with the next episode at 7pm on E4.
