Cleddau returns with storyline exploring coercive control and online dating

Welsh crime drama Cleddau will explore coercive control and the dangers of online dating when its second series begins on S4C on Sunday.

Set in Pembrokeshire, the series reunites detectives DI Ffion Lloyd, played by Elen Rhys, and DS Rick Sheldon, played by Richard Harrington, after a local swimmer discovers a body in the River Cleddau.

The pair must track down a killer who uses a dating app to lure women into his trap.

Writer Catherine Tregenna worked with policing consultant Lisa Casler, whose previous credits include Happy Valley, to develop the investigation and ensure the police procedures were credible.

Casler said the work required a balance between authenticity and the demands of the story.

“You have to keep a level of authenticity, the procedural elements, the jargon and the interactions between the team,” she said.

“The key is trying to make things fit. The integrity of the storyline is what is important and if creative licence has to take priority then that must be the way forward.”

Casler said Cleddau was “more than a police drama”, with the characters’ personal lives central to the story.

“Policing is really just the jobs the characters do. It’s about relationships, family life and the stresses and strains of the impact they have on your working life, whatever job you choose to do,” she said.

The new storyline also sees Ffion drawn into deception herself.

“It was vital to ensure that this storyline was grounded in reality and to show Ffion, this brilliant, courageous, clever woman, being drawn into this type of deception,” Casler said.

Tregenna, whose writing credits include Three Pines, Law & Order UK and DCI Banks, said she wanted to examine the risks people face when seeking relationships online.

“We decided that we wanted to look at the world of online dating, the murders are committed by someone who meets girls online,” she said.

“It was a very interesting world and felt very contemporary too.”

Coercive control

According to figures cited by Women’s Aid, police recorded 49,557 offences of coercive control in England and Wales in the year ending March 2025, up from 45,310 the previous year.

The charity describes coercive control as a pattern of behaviour designed to make someone dependent by isolating them from support, restricting their independence and controlling their everyday life.

It can include monitoring someone’s movements or communications, controlling their finances, humiliating them and denying access to support or essential services.

The first series of Cleddau was S4C’s most-watched drama of 2024. It also attracted the channel’s highest online viewing figures for a series outside sport and children’s programming since it began recording such data in 2020.

It won Best Drama at the 2025 RTS Cymru Awards and received four BAFTA Cymru nominations that year, including a Best Actress nomination for Elen Rhys.

Produced by Blacklight for S4C, the series received Welsh Government support through Creative Wales.

The second series begins at 9pm on Sunday, 11 October, with all episodes available on S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer from the same date. The first series is available on both services now.