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Lucy Beale

In July 2007, Gareth McLean of The Guardian lamented the lack of strong female characters in EastEnders, noting that Lucy "is yet to come into her own".

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A 2008 report commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families advised parents to use fictional characters and storylines to engage their children in conversation about sexual intercourse and relationships, using Lucy and her plans to have underage sexual intercourse as an example.

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When EastEnders embarked upon a storyline which saw Lucy's peer Whitney Dean (Shona McGarty) abused by the ephebophile Tony King (Chris Coghill), the Daily Mirror's Tony Stewart questioned whether viewers would take the plot seriously, given the "sexually precocious" nature of the soap's storylines, and the fact that only recently, Lucy, who is just a year younger than Whitney, had almost given her virginity to her older boyfriend.

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