Emmerdale producer Sophie Roper has revealed that the ongoing domestic abuse storyline between Tom (James Chase) and Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper) will get even more harrowing in the near future when the couple take a trip to Wales.
For months viewers have seen Tom grow increasingly more controlling over his terrified wife - watching her on a live video stream, tracking her movements via a phone app, taking away her financial independence and even scalding her hand under a hot tap.
In Monday night's episode it was revealed that Tom - who is currently faking being wheelchair-bound - had agreed to be interviewed for a job in Wales without Belle's knowledge, and in an upcoming episode they will take a trip there together and spend time in an isolated cottage.
"Belle and Tom is obviously a huge storyline for us at the moment. It's an incredibly important, if not difficult, storyline to watch at moments," new producer Roper told soaps journalists this week. "It's resonating with our audience, because of course it's such a huge, real issue. We'll continue with that story, trying to be really truthful to those kinds of relationships."
She added: "We've got a special episode coming up that sees Tom and Belle head off to Wales on a trip away together. Actually, we recreated Wales in Yorkshire. Our fantastic design team used a cottage up in the village, which we've re-dressed and made this beautiful Welsh retreat. So it's really fantastic, the lengths they've gone to, to create that within our world.
"The story of course, though - set to the backdrop of this beautiful cottage - is going to be really hard-hitting and difficult at moments. Tom is very much isolating Belle from her family, from her surroundings, from everything she knows and loves, which is very much unfortunately a typical trait of abusers and people who are trying to isolate their victim from their family.
"So it will be a difficult drama at moments, but a really important message and really important story that we're keen to continue to tell."
Emmerdale continues weeknights on ITV1 and ITVX.
Neil Wilkes
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