Exclusive: Emmerdale’s Tom and Belle stars reveal harrowing unusual storyline they’ll struggle to film

Tom King and wife Belle’s storyline will take yet another dark turn over the coming months in scenes which are set to shock Emmerdale viewers.

The abuse Belle has suffered at the hands of husband Tom (James Chase) has horrified fans over the last year, with the vet cruelly tormenting her by pretending to kill her beloved dog Piper, forcing her hand under boiling water, beating her and isolating her from her family. After Tom threatened to kill her with a shotgun last week, Belle lashed out in self-defence in fear of her life as she lodged an axe in his back.

Fearing she had killed him, she told Sam and Lydia what had happened – not knowing that Tom had survived after being rushed to hospital. Speaking to the Mirror on Monday evening at the Inside Soap Awards, actors James Chase and Eden Taylor-Draper revealed to the Mirror that there will be a new upcoming storyline involving the pair that has “never been done before” on the soap, describing it as “dark and different”.

“We’re about to go back and start shooting a really cool block where a lot happens,” Eden explained. “It’s going to be exciting – it’s quite different. We’ve not done this before and I’d say just keep watching.”

James continued: “I think it is different and what is going to be airing very soon – it evolves and the storyline that we’ve been doing and the tone of it… it’s still dark but it changes in a way where I think Belle regains more of that power and it sort of becomes more of a tug of war instead of just Tom’s constant iron fists being brought down.”

Opening up about playing abuser Tom, James admitted that he hadn’t realised the storyline would become so dark. “We’ve been doing it since the start of the year and at that point it was tricky because obviously the storyline wasn’t quite so dark to start. It was actually quite nice.

“That shift was strange to start with but I think we’ve done it for so long now and we’ve done so many intense scenes. But they did say the first six months that’s going to be hidden and he’s going to be a good guy so that when it is revealed we really pull the rug out from beneath the audience. I always knew so that’s why I always tried to have tiny little idiosyncracies and tiny moments where you potentially see this darker side to Tom to sort of foreshadow when what we’re doing right now happens.”

Eden hinted at the kind of justice Tom could face as she revealed how she would like to see the story end. “I think in a situation like this it’s important to show the viewers how justice can be served and that’s the message I’d love to get across. I think that our entire team feels the same that these situations can be helped.”

Opening up about how Tom’s relationship with Amelia could progress, he said: “It’s a very different relationship to that with Belle because he isn’t in love with Amelia and he’s not obsessed with her like he is with Belle. I think that’s where a lot of the terrible stuff comes from with his obsession with Belle. I think he is sort of using her because it’s going to get him out of a situation.”

After suggesting the storyline could run right up until Christmas, Eden and James summed up the next few months for their characters in two words – “outrageous” and “interesting”. We can’t wait to watch it all unfold…