Helen Flanagan's Corrie aunt says she should have been 'protected' as a teen after the actress claimed soap bosses 'sexualised' her and made her 'parade around in my knickers' aged just 16

Helen Flanagan's onscreen aunt has come to her defense to say she should have been 'protected' by Coronation Street bosses in her teenage years, after the actress criticised the soap for 'sexualising' her, at just 16 years old.

Helen, 35, is best known for playing Rosie Webster on the cobbles, joining the cast in 2000 at the age of 10 and leaving in 2012, before a year-long reprisal in 2017.

One of her most dramatic storylines during her time on the show saw her then-15-year-old character being groomed by teacher John Stape, played by Graeme Hawley - who is 17 years her senior.

The plot culminated in John kidnapping Rosie and holding her hostage after their relationship was exposed and he was sacked.

Helen recently spoke out about how uncomfortable she felt being made to film 'sexualised' scenes with a 'much older man' when she was just 16.

While she hit out the producers, asking: 'Was it morally right that I was expected to parade about in my knickers like some mad nymphomaniac when I was still just a teenager?'

And now one of her fellow Corrie stars, Sue Devaney -who plays Rosie's aunt Debbie Webster - has shared her support for Helen, insisting that the soap failed to look after her.

Speaking to the Mail's Richard Eden at the TV Choice Awards on Monday, Sue, 58, said: ‘No one should have to go through that and feel uncomfortable.

‘The people around her should have been protecting her.’ 

In an interview with The Mirror, Helen revealed another one of her co-stars, Alison King, had also come to her defense at the time, but that her teenage self didn't 'fully comprehend' the issue at the time.

The mother-of-three recalled: 'Alison King, who plays Carla Connor, once kicked off in the green room, saying how disgusting it was that they were sexualising me when I was a young girl.

'I didn’t fully comprehend what she was talking about at the time. I do now. I get it. I had to do kissing and bedroom scenes with a man a lot older than me.'

However, she was too young to advocate for herself, saying: 'When you’re 16 you don’t really know what’s going on and I was just happy to get the big storylines. But I had scenes as Rosie which didn’t always sit comfortably with me. I felt minging post-shoot.'

Despite the difficult time, Helen has said she is ready to make a return to Coronation Street, seven years after she last starred on the soap.

The model, still who lives nearby the Salford, Manchester-based set, explained that the job would be convenient as she co-parents her three children with her ex Scott Sinclair, but that she hadn't been invited back.

She explained that the job would be convenient for her, as she lives nearby the Salford-based set and would allow her to work around her kids -  Matilda, nine, Delilah Six, and Charlie, three - who she co-parents with her ex Scott Sinclair.

'I'd love to go back to Coronation Street, but they just haven’t asked me and I live around the corner, but they just haven’t asked me',  she told The Sun. 'I'd love to, if they asked me. I'd come back, but they obviously haven't.'

Last year, Helen shared her desire to make an epic return to the ITV soap, by even pitching at idea for Rosie's first storyline.

She told The Mirror: 'I would love to go back to back to Coronation Street. A single mum with a real storyline, with two kids that she dumps with Sally to have her Rovers return play out an iconic barmaid role.'

But in her brand new autobiography, Helen revealed how she struggled during her brief return to Corrie in 2017, because atmosphere on set had 'changed' and unkind cliques had begun to form.

She branded one unnamed co-star as a 'mean girl', claiming the unknown actress was 'cold' to her and made her feel 'uncomfortable.

Writing in Head & Heart: Break-ups, Breakdowns And Being Rosie, she recalled: 'There were cliques amongst the cast which seemed a bit exclusionary, and I was made to feel particularly uncomfortable by another actress who could be quite sarcastic and cold with me.

'Maybe her nose was out of joint because my return had attracted a fair bit of press attention – not something I could have helped – but I do think she had a false impression of me.

'I'd end up sitting on my own a lot of the time in the canteen feeling quite left out. It was like a real-life Mean Girls when I think about it now. I can get on with everyone, but this actress just wasn't very nice to me.'