Emmerdale star James Chase has teased his character Tom King’s long-awaited comeuppance.
The ITV soap is currently airing a dark storyline in which Tom continues to cruelly torment Belle, with the show exploring the numerous way abusive partners can victimise their spouses, including through coercive control, physical violence and emotional abuse.
Recently speaking to Digital Spy and other media about the storyline, Chase said that Tom will eventually have to be punished for his crimes because “it’s what he deserves” and “he can’t get away with it”.
ITV
“I don’t know to what extent that would be or how the storyline would end with Tom. But I would think it would have to be something like that, because she needs justice for what’s happened to her,” he continued.
“I think also the viewer needs that. After 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.”
As for what he thinks a fitting outcome for Tom would be, Chase said: “Definitely at least prison. There needs to be at least that.”
Given that the storyline and Tom’s time on the soap has an “end point”, Chase said that this provides him with the opportunity to “push it really far”.
“If you’re coming to your last block or whatever, you know this is where you can go for it, maybe more than you ever have,” he added. “Because it’s an arc of the character.”
We also recently caught up with Emmerdale producer Laura Shaw, who said viewers can “expect the storyline to run until the end of this year”.
“We’ve said right from the beginning that we wanted to tell this story as truthfully and authentically as we can,” she explained.
“For people who are subjected to domestic abuse, it’s not something that’s over in a couple of weeks. It’s something that goes on for a long period of time and we wanted to be truthful to that.”
