Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper) has received support from the most unlikeliest of sources in Emmerdale as Nicola King (Nicola Wheeler) reported Tom (James Chase) to the police.
Tom, as viewers know, controlled and manipulated Belle throughout their marriage, proving violent too.
Belle was left terrified for her life and thus bravely left him, confiding in her family about what she’d been subjected to.
Jimmy (Nick Miles) and Nicola were very much Team Tom to begin with, but following Carl Holliday’s (Charlie Joyce) revelation last week – that he saw Tom disposing of his tablet – Nicola switched sides.
With Tom having quite clearly intimidated Carl, Nicola came to realise that Belle was telling the truth when she reported her husband to the police for domestic abuse.
Tom tried to cover his tracks, admitting he only disposed of the tablet because he worried how it would look since he had footage of Belle on the device.
Jimmy believed his tale but Nicola did not and thus, when the coast was clear, she took Carl to the station, where they reported what they knew.
Tom was subsequently carted off by the police for further questioning and Jimmy was certainly not pleased,as he turned his attention to Nicola, demanding to know why she did such a thing.
Nicola made no secret of the fact that she believes Tom is guilty of all the things Belle has accused him of and that she was simply protecting her children by filing the report.
Jimmy, however, refused to see her point of view, still believing Tom to be innocent.
The question is: will Carl and Nicola’s report prove instrumental in taking Tom down? Up until now, the police had been unable to find any shred of evidence due to the unknown whereabouts of the tablet.
While the tablet has been destroyed, Carl and Nicola’s statement confirm that it did exist once upon a time – and that Tom went out if his way to destroy it, meaning that he clearly has something to hide.
It seems that Tom’s time is finally starting to run out. Will Belle get justice at last? And will Tom pay for his crimes?
Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 or stream from 7am on ITVX.
