Joanne Khan Joanne Khan was Flick Khan ' s irresponsible younger sister who ran off to the Lake District with Steve McDonald . In 1990 , when their parents flew out to Karachi to visit a sick relative , Joanne was sent up from Canterbury to Weatherfield to stay with Flick at 7 Coronation Street . She had no sooner arrived when she turned the head of Andy McDonald , who saw her taxi pull up and helped her with her bag . The next day , she let Andy show her what Weatherfield had to offer , getting to know him as he did so . To remove the competition , Andy told Joanne that Steve was way younger than him but she was soon put straight by Jenny Bradley . Liking Andy but not crazy about him , Joanne went along to a meeting at Jim ' s Cafe after receiving a romantic poem inviting her . There , she discovered that it was actually Steve who had written it , despite him not having met or even seen her before . Andy was instantly cast aside as Joanne fancied Steve more and started going out with him . As Steve was 16 and Joanne 15 , Flick didn ' t like them seeing each other , as she was afraid they would take things too far and she would be blamed by their parents . When she caught them in a clinch at No . 7 , Flick threw Steve out and forbade Joanne from seeing him . Joanne ignored her sister ' s rules and went out with Steve to North Cross Park . To Flick ' s relief , their parents returned to the country shortly thereafter , so she started making arrangements to travel to France with Jenny on holiday and drop Joanne off in Canterbury on the way . Joanne tried to get Flick to change her mind by pretending to want to see more of her , but when she stood firm , Steve and Joanne left the Street on Jim ' s motorbike under the cover of night . The teens headed north and arrived at the Lake District the next morning . Though glad to be alone with Steve , Joanne had doubts about not letting anyone know where they were , and after they spent the night roughing it in an derelict house , the appeal began to wear off . Steve was well equipped to handle himself away from home , breaking into a caravan with ease , but Joanne refused to to stay there in case the owners returned . They reached a low when the bike broke down and Steve had to abandon it , but Steve managed to secure them jobs washing up in a hotel kitchen for £1 . 50 an hour , plus accommodation . When she discovered that Steve had agreed to a double room , Joanne suspected he was going to try and talk her into having sex but when she complained about the room , he was indifferent on the matter and told her to stop moaning . Joanne then came to her senses and walked out on Steve , planning to hitchhike to Weatherfield on her own . After sleeping rough , Joanne caught lifts from two men , the first of whom spooked her with dirty jokes , and the second tried to make her take the " scenic route " back to Manchester . Unsure of his intentions , Joanne ditched him when he went into the gents at a service station . She arrived back in Coronation Street late , after more than 24 hours travel , receiving a warm welcome from Flick and her dad , who had travelled up from Canterbury when he heard that she ' d gone missing . The next day , Joanne refused to say much about what had happened and , out of loyalty to Steve , she didn ' t tell anyone where he was until she saw how worried Liz McDonald was about him . After opening up about her experiences to Jenny , who had once went missing in France , Joanne was taken back home by her dad .