Emmerdale boss Laura Shaw has confirmed that Tom King’s (James Chase) abuse of wife Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper) will continue for quite some time.
The long-running story, which began prior to their engagement last year, has seen Tom emotionally manipulate Belle and physically abuse her.
Emmerdale fans are divided over the storyline, with some branding it ‘horrible’ and ‘awful’, while others have praised the soap for its realistic portrayal of domestic abuse.
He’s also tracked her every movement and in recent weeks, we saw him lock her in the house whilst a fire broke out in the kitchen. Luckily, she woke up in time to notice the blaze and extinguish it, but alarm bells started ringing in her head when she noticed both of the doors were locked.
To make matters worse, she then found out she’s pregnant with his baby and has sought help from an abortion clinic, but told Tom that she had actually experienced a miscarriage.
Tom eventually found out the truth but because he was in a wheelchair at the time, he wasn’t able to get revenge by physically hurting Belle.
‘We said right from the beginning that we wanted to tell this story as authentically and truthfully as we can’, producer Laura Shaw told us when discussing the length of this storyline.
‘Let’s face it, for people who are subjected to domestic abuse this isn’t something that’s over in a couple of weeks, it’s something that goes on for a long length of time and we wanted to be truthful to that.
‘I think you can expect that this storyline is going to run until the end of this year.’
On the planned ending for the storyline, she added: ‘I think we’ve always had a good idea in our heads exactly where we wanted it to end, if I’m honest.
‘Obviously we’ve found new twists and turns as we’ve gone through but we’ve always had a pretty clear picture in our heads of where it would end.’
Well aware that his time in the show could soon come to an end, actor James Chase said: ‘He can’t get away with it. I don’t know to what extent that would be, or how the storyline would end but I would think it would have to be something like that because she needs justice for what’s happened to her.
‘The viewer needs that, for all the hell we’ve seen Belle get put through we have to see her win in the end, or at the very least for him to lose. If there is a certain end point you know you can push it really far.’
With a little while to go until the end of this plot, we will soon see Belle and Tom head to a remote cottage in Wales. For Belle, she believes they’re spending time in the Welsh countryside on a relaxing holiday, unaware that Tom has actually organised a new job out there and has absolutely no intention of returning to the village.
It’s the centrepiece of a special Emmerdale episode in coming weeks, with producer Sophie Roper dropping some details to Metro.co.uk about it.
‘Belle and Tom is obviously a huge storyline for us at the moment, an incredibly important if not difficult storyline to watch at moments. It’s resonating with our audience because it’s such a huge, real issue.
‘We’re continuing with that story and trying to be really truthful to those kind of relationships. We’ve got a special episode coming up that sees Tom and Belle head off to Wales on a trip away together.
‘Tom is very much isolating Belle from her family, from her surroundings, from everything that she knows and loves, which is very much unfortunately a typical trait of abusers.
‘It will be difficult drama at moments, but a really important message and a really important story we’re keen to continue to tell.’
