After many months of making Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper)’s life a misery in Emmerdale, evil Tom King (James Chase) was finally charged with coercive and controlling behaviour and ᴀssᴀᴜʟᴛ.
For Belle it was a massive relief to know that her abuser was in custody and she was safe. More importantly, after so many people had bought Tom’s lies and believed she wasn’t telling the truth, finally having proof that she’d been telling the truth all along was massive.
It seemed like the end of a horrible chapter for Belle, but as this story nears its end there are still some twists and turns to come. Even from behind bars, Tom still finds ways to manipulate events back in the village.
‘Tom is good at manipulation. He’s good at turning people on each other for his own benefit,’ James Chase told us.
‘He enjoys playing people and playing scenarios. Tom is brilliant at it. If he was born in medieval times he would probably be a king! Pardon the pun with his name. He thinks he can get away with it as he has a sort of God complex. He thinks he’s incredibly intelligent.
‘He is intelligent. Tom is cunning, conniving and clever – and I would kind of compare him to Littlefinger from Game of Thrones.’
We’ve seen the way that Tom targets and then controls people, specifically young women who may have a vulnerability to them like Belle and Amelia (Daisy Campbell).
But with Amelia having finally saw through his lies, he sets his sights on his cousin Angelica King (Rebecca Bakes).
Angel has recently come home from a young offenders’ institution after ᴋɪʟʟɪɴɢ Heath Hope (Sebastian Dowling) due to reckless driving. Her homecoming has been difficult as she struggled to fit back into family life.
Tom takes advantage of this when Angelica contacts him in prison. He twists her around his little finger with flattery and lies until he’s won her round to thinking that it’s Belle who’s the villain and Tom the victim.
Then he asks her to try to win her dad, Jimmy (Nick Miles), back round to his side. Jimmy was previously one of Tom’s very few supporters but changed his stance when he saw the way Tom behaved towards Amelia. Tom obviously realises that Jimmy is his best chance of gaining an ally in the village again.
‘He always has a plan,’ James Chase warned. ‘Tom always has got a plan and he’s got something up his sleeve, because he has to if he wants to get out of this situation on top.’
Angel encourages her dad to read a letter from Tom, but Jimmy isn’t convinced by what Tom has to say. Undeterred, Angel piles on the emotional blackmail until Jimmy agrees to visit his nephew in prison.
Tom is pleased to have the opportunity to work his manipulative ways in person, but this time Jimmy is far less gullible than he has been previously where Tom is concerned.
When Tom resorts to his usual approach of blaming Belle for everything that happened, Jimmy realises that Tom is never going to change and he leaves the prison.
With Jimmy out of the picture there’s still Angelica, and she takes it upon herself to try to further Tom’s cause by posting a video online – a move that could swing events in Tom’s favour…
Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 or stream from 6am on ITVX.
