'The gravity of that is huge'
Actress Emma Atkins has spoken about tonight’s episode of Emmerdale, which dropped the bombshell that her character Charity Dingle’s son is alive.
The Woolpack landlady thinks the boy she gave birth to, aged 14 – after being repeatedly raped by DI Mark Bails - was stillborn. But flashback scenes revealed that the baby survived, and that Charity fled the hospital before nurses could break the good news.
Asked about how Charity will react when she inevitably finds out the truth, Emma told us: “I think the fact she was convinced that this child never survived, the shock impact will be huge, and the audience will clearly be waiting for that moment.
“It is a big moment in her life, to discover her child did actually survive. What would anyone think? You just have to be human to know that would knock anyone west. It’s such an enormity. The gravity of that is huge.”
Emma adds that she was thrilled when producers first revealed that there is another member of the Dingle clan out there – who will now be aged around 28, and is half brother to Charity’s daughter Debbie and her other two sons Noah and Moses.
“It’s an amazing idea; I got chills,” she says. “There’s an episode when Charity’s face to face with her past in some shape or form, and it’s remarkable. Personally, I was overjoyed there was something else we were going to visit.”
Charity believes that Bails, who recently came back into her life via girlfriend Vanessa’s sister, Tracy, is her son’s father. But as he also pimped her out to his colleagues, she can’t be one hundred per cent sure.
Will she be reunited with her boy? And if she is, will her son’s DNA lead to Bails getting conviced for his horrific crimes?
