EastEnders' Chris: 'I'm NOT Tony'

Chris Coghill has admitted he's concerned that people will compare him to his EastEnders character, paedophile Tony King.

The actor, who has also appeared in Shameless, plays Bianca Jackson's (Patsy Palmer) lover in the soap and his character is grooming her 15-year-old stepdaughter Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty) in a sexual abuse storyline.

But Chris told the Daily Mirror he's worried that people may confuse him with his on-screen character.

He told the newspaper: "Fans of EastEnders will hate Tony and that's what they're supposed to do. From time to time members of the public may confuse reality with the soap, but I'm an actor, not Tony.

"I'm a bit worried about that, but I'm a big boy - I'll get a big hat and a pair of sunglasses."

Speaking about the storyline, Chris added: "The problem with child abuse is that you can never really tell if someone is an abuser or paedophile. The only way they're ever going to get caught is if somebody tells.

"So if people recognise that something on Eastenders is happening in their lives and they pick up the phone to NSPCC or Childline, then it's worth doing."