Thankfully, Ant has started to stand up for him.

Hollyoaks spoilers follow for the latest episode from Channel 4 streaming, which doesn’t air on E4 until tomorrow.

Hollyoaks’ Ro Hutchinson gets a nasty surprise in last night’s (August 14) latest streaming episode, as brother Ant and Arlo Fielding play a cruel trick on him.

Ant has been feeling left out with his parents Tony and Diane focusing their attention on understanding and navigating Ro’s transition, and the sinister Arlo has picked up on that and roped Ant into his plan to pick on Ro by pretending to be a fellow trans man online.

In this latest episode, Ro went to meet with online acquaintance ‘Ash’, but found Arlo there. Arlo threw eggs at Ro while Ant recorded it. Ro was especially hurt to see his brother there, and was upset that he would look a state for when Ash turned up, unaware there was no Ash.

Later on, Ant told Arlo that hey should delete the profile now that they had done their prank. Arlo disagreed, and continued to misgender Ro and spout transphobia.

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Ant said as he pushed Arlo away, telling him they weren’t friends anymore.

Back at The Dog, Ant apologised to Ro, stating: “There’s no excuse for what I did. I won’t be seeing him anymore… No one’s going to be tight to my brother.”

Things got worse for Ro as the Hutchinsons looked at the pub’s social media, and saw a photo of him in a binder, shared without permission, with a caption calling him a freak.

Diane, who has struggled with getting her head around the situation, immediately freaked out about the binding, rather than the social media attack. Will her family be able to get her to understand?

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.