Summer Bay actress Ada Nicademou has opened up to whatsontv.co.uk about her character Leah Patterson-Baker’s terrifying scenes.
After café owner Leah Patterson-Baker mysteriously went missing six weeks ago the Home and Away plotline seemed to have been put on the back burner.
Events of the dramatic Summer Bay hospital gun siege took over but now we know the horrifying truth about where Leah has really been. Actress Ada Nicademou has revealed that her latest storyline is the most twisted she’s had to tackle yet.
Ever since Leah went missing, boyfriend Justin Morgan and her friends Irene Roberts and Roo Stewart have been trying to trace her. The police were of little help and it wasn’t until Justin spotted that Leah’s inactive blog was back online that he discovered Leah was engaged to a mystery man!
A helpless Justin was convinced that something was very wrong. Eventually it was clear that Leah was being held against her will, forced into playing ‘wife’ to her sinister kidnapper.
“It’s a completely different Leah than we’ve ever seen before,” shared Ada. “She’s scared to talk, won’t answer back to him whatsoever and she’s been mentally abused for weeks by this man.”
Ada explained how Leah got to be in such a terrifying situation:
“She had a lot of domestic violence survivors contact her on her blog. Douglas, the man who kidnapped Leah, had a wife who was being abused by him who plucked up the courage to leave him because of the blog.
“Douglas wants Leah to pay for it so he arranged to meet Leah - who thought she was going to meet his wife - and kidnapped her at the meeting place in the hospital car park.”
After weeks of keeping Leah captive, things take a dark turn when Douglas insists she dress up like his wife on their wedding day.
“There’s this odd scene where he basically tells her that they’re going to get married,” revealed Ada. “Then he says, ‘tonight we will be sleeping in the same bed together’. That’s massive alarm bells because up until that point she hasn’t been sexually abused, so she knows she needs to get out.”
“Filming those scenes were really difficult and really scary. It was a really hard day. Although it was great from an acting perspective, it’s very hard to watch. It’s such a sensitive storyline and topic that we tried to really do it justice.”
Thankfully, Leah escapes Douglas’ clutches and is saved by Justin, who has managed to track down her whereabouts, and Leah is taken back home to safety.
“After she returns she has a form of PTSD and she’s petrified all the time. She can’t even make a decision about what to wear, what to say or what to eat,” Ada commented.
“Justin is being very supportive but she can’t look at him and she won’t let him touch her. Douglas has stripped her of her whole life. It’s very sad seeing her like that.”
Although the storyline has been tough to play out, Ada revealed she’s enjoyed the challenge.
“As much as it was difficult and draining, it was nice to do something that I haven’t done before,” she shared. “There’s some lightness eventually, but it’s a long road ahead.”
Home and Away will temporarily air a reduced schedule of THREE episodes a week. Watch on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 1.15pm on Channel 5
