Hollyoaks airs Romeo Nightingale's plea in Rayne murder case

Hollyoaks spoilers follow.

Hollyoaks has revealed how Romeo Nightingale decided to plea in the Rayne Royce murder case.

Romeo was arrested earlier this month, after viewers learned that he was responsible for the accidental death of his girlfriend, following an altercation by a pool.

Since then, his loved ones have tried to encourage him to plead not guilty, as they don't want to see him go down for something he didn't intend to do... except for Prince McQueen, who asked him to plead guilty.

hollyoaks, romeo nightingale getting arrested, january 2024
Channel 4

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Tonight's (January 24) episode saw James and Peri Lomax visit Romeo to try and get through to him after he sacked his father as his lawyer, but he was insistent that he didn't want to keep dragging people in his mess.

"If it got out that a lawyer his hid client from the police and got him a fake passport, your career is done," Romeo told his dad. "I want to get you as far away from this as possible. I want you to have a life after this."

Peri asked a frustrated James to leave the two of them alone, then she tried to convince Romeo that he was just defending himself after Rayne had been consistently awful to him, and that he needed to tell the court about her abuse in great detail.

"I promise, I promise you you can do it," she said. "You need to show them you're a victim, or they're gonna make their own conclusion: that you're just another woman-beater. Do you want that?"

hollyoaks october 2023, peri lomax and romeo nightingale in the shared house
Lime Pictures

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Although he tearfully told her that he would get up and tell the court "the truth", when it came to the hearing, he stood up and pleaded guilty.

"Accident or not, I took a life, and I've got to live with that," he told them.

As he knew that Peri and James wouldn't react well to that, he told them his hearing was at 4pm when it was actually two hours earlier. But Peri found out about it from a live news feed, and the duo arrived at the court just in time to see him being carried away in cuffs.


Hollyoaks streams first online via Channel 4 each weekday at 7.30pm. Episodes then air on E4 the following day, before getting their YouTube premiere a week after that.

Selected omnibus episodes are available via Prime Video.

Read more Hollyoaks spoilers on our dedicated homepage


Organisations including The Mankind Initiative (www.mankind.org.uk) provide support and advice to men experiencing domestic abuse or coercive control. The helpline is open weekdays between 10am and 4pm, is 01823 334244.

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