Stevie suffered broken ribs and injuries to her face (Picture: BBC)

Dr Stevie Nash (Elinor Lawless) was brutally attacked in tonight’s Casualty when she stood up to an aggressive associate of a patient who later ambushed her in an empty corridor and launched a ferocious assault on her.

Stevie had been on her way to an interview for the Jac Naylor award. ‘That’s why I look awesome,’ she told Marcus (Adam Sina). And she did. She also looked confident, even though she’d previously discovered that Ethan (George Rainsford) was also up for the award and had been nominated by Dylan (William Beck) after he refused to nominate her because of her lack of people skills.

Earlier she’d been looking after Flo, a young woman who’d fallen from a wall onto concrete. We saw that before she fell she had a dizzy spell, and Stevie soon realised that she’d taken something. This turned out to be PCP – a drug which was being given to her by her boyfriend and manager, Jordan.

This Jordan was a nasty piece of work and Stevie had no qualms in standing up to him. And it was Jordan who was waiting in the corridor when she went for the interview.

Stevie was approached by a nasty patient (Picture: BBC)

Stevie suffered some broken ribs and cuts to her face in the horrific attack, but the most worrying aspect of this is how it could have shifted the power balance between her and Marcus. At the start of the episode Stevie was happily telling Marcus not to bother cooking dinner for her that evening because she had other plans. But after the attack, with Marcus putting in a word with the interview panel to give her another chance at the award, he was reassuring her that he would protect her and wouldn’t let anything like this happen to her again.

Casualty boss Jon Sen told Metro.co.uk that the assault on Stevie is going to lead to an ongoing story of coercive control for her as Marcus reveals his true colours.

‘We look at how Stevie is affected by that attack and how it propels her, rather unwisely, into the arms of Marcus because she feels she’s got no one else,’ he told us. ‘She feels shattered by it and thinks she’s got no one else who is there for her to pick up the pieces. And so begins a coercive story for her with Marcus, which is really fascinating to see.’

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Elsewhere, it was also a shattering day for Jan (Di Botcher) and Sah (Arin Smethurst) as they attended the scene of a road traffic accident. They rescued a girl, Fatima, from the car but there was leaking petrol and the car exploded before they could get her parents out.

Jan is struggling (Picture: BBC)

While Sah and Jan had earlier disagreed about Sah needing to take time off to look after their mental health, it was clear that Jan’s approach was to try to put on a brave face and stay strong, even though she was already struggling after attending the funeral of a former colleague.

When she was alone at the end of the shift she broke down in tears as the pressure of the day overwhelmed her.

Jon Sen tells us what’s ahead as Marcus begins to reveal his true colours.