WHO’S TELLING THE TRUTH?

Ruby Allen’s return to Albert Square is marred by an event that will get viewers talking, says actress Louisa Lytton

Ruby Allen is plunged into a harrowing rape storyline this week that will divide the audience, says the actress who plays her, Louisa Lytton. Gangster’s daughter Ruby is sure she’s been raped but the men involved deny attacking her. A special episode focuses on the storyline and viewers are left to choose who they believe.

The nightmare begins after Ruby, who has returned to Albert Square after 12 years, gets drunk at a reunion party for Martin Fowler’s old school friends. The next morning she tells her best friend Stacey Fowler that she had sex with a chap called Ross but woke up with another man called Matt on top of her. Meanwhile, the men are telling Martin how they both had consensual sex with her.

Louisa says, ‘Ruby’s disgusted with herself for getting drunk and sleeping with these boys. She blames herself, but when she tells Stacey the full story, Stacey tells Ruby she was raped.

‘But Ross and Matt tell Martin that Ruby was all over them, she wanted to have sex with them, and they don’t consider what they did to be rape.

‘The episode shows two sides of the story, and lets the audience decide what they agree with. It shows how people can get into situations where sexual consent isn’t always clear. It will split the audience in their views.’

The charity Rape Crisis has overseen the storyline to ensure it is ‘based on a reality which is, sadly, so prevalent today’, says Louisa, who hopes it will ‘give people who have been raped the confidence their voice will be heard’. She adds, ‘Many rape victims blame themselves for how drunk they were, what they were wearing, how they acted, but that’s all irrelevant.

‘We hope to make people aware that sexual consent is not a grey area

– there is consented sex and there is rape, and nothing in between.’

It’s an explosive return for Louisa, who joined EastEnders aged 15 in her first acting job after leaving the Sylvia Young Theatre School. Ruby’s storylines revolved around her mob boss dad Johnny, who later died in prison, making Ruby a teenage millionaire.

Since then, Ruby has been running an events management business in Essex, but Louisa says she has returned to Walford because she’s lonely. ‘She’s a very confident woman

now. But she’s a bit lost with no family around her any more.’

Louisa left the soap in 2006 and Strictly Come Dancing snapped her up, then The Bill, and she’s worked in TV and on stage solidly ever since.

Now 29, Louisa – who lives in North London with her partner Ben – didn’t think twice when asked to return by show boss John Yorke.

‘It feels like home. It’s a family, everyone supports each other and I get to use my acting bones every day.’