Hollyoaks reveals the shock truth about Ste's kidnap in early streaming release

Hollyoaks spoilers follow for Monday’s episode (19 October), which is available to watch now on streaming service Channel 4 and hasn’t yet aired on TV.

Hollyoaks has finally confirmed who kidnapped Ste Hay, as the shocking truth is finally exposed in a special flashback episode. It was recently revealed that Imran Maalik’s mystery woman is none other than Cindy Cunningham, and as their past relationship is explained, another huge secret comes to light…

Today’s episode flashes back to a year ago in LA, and reveals that Imran and Cindy bumped into each other by chance in a therapist’s office, and they arranged to get a coffee together.

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Six weeks later, the pair looked close as they continued to meet up. Cindy opened up about the impact of Ella’s death on her step-sister Mandy and the wider family – a death that was accidentally caused by Ste back in 2021.

Imran and Cindy progressed their romance and slept together. Cindy revealed that she wishes Ste would answer for what he did to Ella and to get justice for her death.

Another three months later, Imran told Cindy the news that James was alive. He was furious that the man that framed his dad Kashif, who later died in prison, had cheated death himself.

Imran explained to Cindy that he had bumped into Leah again, and Cindy encouraged him to take a chance on this potential new relationship – with their own romance staying in LA.

Then began Imran and Leah’s love story, with their return to the village, their engagement, and the wedding day where Imran exposed Leah’s betrayal.

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It was Cindy who showed up at Imran’s door on that fateful wedding day to comfort her heartbroken ex. Talk turned to Ste and James and the idea that they needed to pay for their crimes – then later, Imran overheard Gemma organising a hit on Mercedes while she, Ste and Leela were on a spa trip.

Imran shared what he’d discovered with Cindy, and the pair decided to use the opportunity to finally take revenge on Ste and frame James for the crime. He intercepted Gemma’s heavies and threatened them into taking Ste instead of Mercedes, leading to his kidnap.

Meanwhile, Cindy secretly downloaded software and images onto James’ laptop that made it look like James had created the deepfake video of Ste, and Imran planted evidence in James’ car.

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Weeks later, Cindy started to feel guilty about their actions and urged Imran to stop, making clear that she wanted no part of this anymore.

Struggling Imran faced another challenge when Gemma’s heavy Brick pulled out of the plan, realising that Imran’s threats were fake. He then offered returning Lucas a place to stay, and used the opportunity to persuade him to help move his dad’s body.

In turn, Lucas got Gemma to move the van, then a chain of events followed where James was arrested for Ste’s kidnap.

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Cindy disapproves of how Imran’s revenge scheme has spiralled out of control, but viewers know that things have just got worse, with Imran leaving Lucas to die after his attempt to stop the teen running away went seriously wrong.

Will Imran ever be caught out, and will either Cindy or Lucas expose the truth about what’s happened to Ste?

Hollyoaks airs on Mondays-Wednesdays with its Channel 4 streaming premiere at 7am, then an E4 broadcast the same night at 7pm. Full episodes are also released on YouTube a week after their Channel 4 release.

Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.

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