- ITV bosses are supporting the actress who has been left ‘shaken’
Tina O’Brien has been given time off work after an attack outside her £1million mansion left her ‘traumatised’.
The Coronation Street actress was seen having her hair pulled and being punched as she wrestled one youth during the brawl last Friday.
Tina, who plays Sarah Barlow on the popular soap, was trying to defend her home in Bramhall, Stockport from an unprovoked attack.
According to reports, the married mum of two is being supported by ITV bosses who have offered her their ‘total support’ after the shocking fight.
A friend told The Sun that the 40-year-old ‘has been left really shaken’ and she has been told take a week off to recover.
The actress ran out of her house as a brawl broke out on her quiet street at around 8pm on Friday, March 15.
At the start of the footage obtained by The Sun, Tina, who was wearing a black and white striped top and pink jogging bottoms, can be seen trying to calm tensions between two female youths.
One can be heard saying: ‘You’ve touched my mum.’
Tina can be heard urging one of the girls to release their hold on the other, saying: ‘Let go of her…. stop. Let go of her, I just said stop. Let go of her.’
The footage goes on to show the teenage girls kicking each other, and then Tina who wades in to break up the fight.
The pair are seen wrestling with each other and with Tina, who briefly gets the girl in a headlock.
The girls are seen getting her hair pulled and being punched.
A girl with blonde hair then gets involved shouting ‘who the f*** do you [think you] actually are, touching my mum!’
This then sparks another wrestling match between the two teens, with the Coronation Street star caught in the middle.
The footage then cuts out and when it restarts shows a melee involving the actress and three girls.
On Thursday night, a source told The Sun: ‘Tina went straight to meet her Corrie bosses this morning.
‘She told them she was the victim here, and they have accepted that. They also think the incident has traumatised her so have been very sympathetic.’
The source said the actress, who has also appeared in Waterloo Road and Strictly Come Dancing, had been trying to ‘break things up’.
They said: ‘Watching her on Coronation Street, you wouldn’t think in a million years she’d get involved in something like this, especially in such a public place.’
They added that Tina, who has won Best Actress at the Inside Soap Awards twice, was ‘defending herself’.
‘Tina has been plagued by problems near her house and, on this occasion, came out to try to deal with it,’ the source said.
‘Some girls travelled to her road and were close to her house so she felt she was defending herself and her home.’
A spokesperson for the actress told The Sun: ‘Tina was the victim of an unprovoked incident outside her home which she has reported to the police.’
In addition to the mother-of-two contacting the police, a relative of one of the children is also believed to have got in touch with officers.
The soap-star is now living in fear of reprisals after the brawl and is increasing security around the home she shares with her husband Adam Crofts – a personal trainer – and their two children.
In addition to the mother-of-two contacting the police, a relative of one of the children is also believed to have got in touch with officers.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said: ‘Officers are investigating reports of an assault in Stockport between 8pm and 9pm on 15 March.’
The mother of one of the teen girls involved in the fight claimed the group had been looking for trouble after a fall-out over a boy. She also claimed that Tina had defended her daughter.
She said: ‘Tina has been pretty brave in stepping in. Tina is only little herself and she was defending my daughter, so I am extremely grateful to her.
‘You can hear in her voice on the video that she is frightened. This is also not like her, and she is a really good person.
‘I have thanked her and would have done the same if it was my house.’
Despite claims by the actress that he street has been plagued by anti-social behaviour, neighbours of the Coronation Street star have told of their shock after the actress was attacked in a videoed street brawl outside her home.
They claim the star’s home has not been targeted by anti-social behaviour yobs in the past with some believing rival girls struck during a pre-arranged fight.
Neighbour Derek Crookes, 71, said: ‘It was a real surprise when I saw the video. Tina’s lovely and there’s been no trouble here, certainly not girls or lads targeting her house.
‘It’s very quiet here, that’s one of the attractions of living here. We don’t have this sort of trouble such as fighting in the street.’
There is no suggestion Ms O’Brien had any role in organising the fight.
Another neighbour said: ‘It’s shocking to see Tina scraping as there’s been no trouble with teenagers here in the past.
‘The rumour is that these girls are from a rougher part of Stockport. It must have been an organised fight.’
The Corrie actress is believed to have reported the incident in the cul-de-sac to Greater Manchester Police.
Mother-of-two Tina is left her home early yesterday morning and went to the ITV studios in Salford Quays where she told bosses she had been left traumatised by the violenbce outside her home.
Her husband Adam Crofts, 38, refused to talk about the street fight involving his wife.
A spokeswoman for Tina declined to comment.
Tina was a regular on Corrie from 1999 to 2007 before leaving to pursue other projects, such as Waterloo Road. She returned to the Cobbles in 2015.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
