Tracy Barlow begins life behind bars

Scheming murderer < href="/soap/coronation_street/whos_who/tracy_barlow">Tracy Barlow sits alone in her prison cell with nothing for company but a picture of her daughter.

The cold-blooded killer, played by Kate Ford, has begun life behind bars following her guilty verdict for murder shown in Monday night's gripping episode of Coronation Street.

Unlike her mother Deirdre, who was sensationally jailed in 1998 for a fraud she did not commit, Tracy is guilty as charged.

Deirdre's prison term sparked a national campaign to release her which even received the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But Tracy is set to serve her full 15-year sentence for bashing boyfriend Charlie Stubbs on the head with an ornament.

Her fate now decided, these dramatic pictures are from an episode of the ITV1 soap due to be screened on Sunday April 8. This is the first and last time that fans will see Tracy as she turns her back on her family when they refuse to fund an appeal for her.

Her daughter, Amy, will leave the Barlow household to begin life with her father, Steve McDonald.

Viewers previously watched super-bitch Tracy confess her guilt to her mother, played by Anne Kirkbride, who then had to wrestle with her conscience over whether to tell the truth.

Two endings to the court case were filmed but producers decided that the only option was to see Tracy go down as she had falsely claimed to be the victim of domestic abuse after a violent and pre-meditated murder.

A spokesman said: "Coronation Street is a moral show where cheats and murderers rarely prosper, so there was no way Tracy could ever get away with this crime."