The Dingle code means that Emmerdale’s most populous family sticks together whenever one of their own is threatened. But when one family member turns against another it all soon descends into civil war.
That’s where we are currently, after Samson Dingle (Sam Hall) was stabbed and he accused Matty Barton (Ash Palmisciano) of deliberately attacking him without any provocation.
In coming episodes we’ll see battle lines drawn between Cain (Jeff Hordley) and Sam (James Hooton), as Sam supports his son’s version of events and Cain sides with his son-in-law Matty.
Viewers know that the truth of the matter is that Matty is totally innocent. Samson and his friend Josh (Osian Morgan) had come to the Hide to celebrate Samson passing his driving test.
Josh turned out to be quite the troublemaker and started off the evening by pestering Matty’s wife Amy (Natalie Ann Jamieson), who firmly told him she wasn’t interested. After she’d gone home, Josh turned his attention to Matty, berating him with transphobic slurs, using his deadname and generally being obnoxious.
Matty was handling the situation well but when Josh demanded money from the till in the Hide. and Matty refused, Josh pushed Samson towards him – and Samson was stabbed with the knife that Matty happened to have been holding.
In the aftermath, with Samson bleeding and needing an ambulance, Josh changed the story so it seemed that Matty had been the one taunting him and Samson, and had launched an unprovoked attack on them.
This, of course, is a ridiculous idea to anyone who knows Matty because he’s a peaceful, gentle soul who isn’t aggressive. Moira (Natalie J. Robb) knows this and so, really, do the rest of the family. But Sam feels he has no choice but to stand by Samson, who is sticking to his story that he was the innocent party.
In coming episodes Cain demands that Samson should tell the truth, but when Matty also has a go at getting Samson to change his story Samson tells the police that Matty has been trying to intimidate him. There’s an angry confrontation between the two, which ends up with Matty being taken away by the police.
Cain glares at Sam for sticking by Samson, who is clearly lying. Bad news soon arrives when Cain informs the Woolpack that Matty is being kept in prison on remand and the police have decided not to investigate Matty’s claim that the two boys were trying to rob the till.
The tension between Cain and Sam erupts into an aggressive stand-off as Lydia (Karen Blick) is forced to intervene.
Meanwhile, for Matty, the full horror of his situation dawns on him after a police officer tells him to keep his head down in prison and not to reveal that he’s transgender, otherwise he could be a target.
