James Chase revealed Tom and wife Belle’s storyline will take yet another dark turn over the coming months

Emmerdale star James Chase has confirmed his immediate future in the show as he revealed Tom King and wife Belle’s storyline will take yet another dark turn over the coming months.

Viewers of the ITV soap have been horrified to see the abuse Belle has suffered at the hands of her husband Tom. The vet has cruelly tormented her by pretending to kill her beloved dog, Piper, forcing her hand under boiling water, beating her and isolating her from her family.

Things reached what appeared to be a dramatic climax last week when Belle attacked Tom with an axe. After Tom threatened to kill her with a shotgun last week, Belle lashed out in self-defence and fearing for her life, 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. She has since visited Tom in hospital where he believed they had struck a deal between them not to say it was her who attacked him and in return, she would stay quiet about her situation.

However, Belle was later seen at a police station where she handed over the axe that she struck him with last week saying “I’ve attacked my husband, in self defence, he wanted to kill me. I’m a victim of domestic abuse.”

Speaking to the Mirror on Monday evening (September 30) at the Inside Soap Awards, actors James Chase and Eden Taylor-Draper, who play Tom and Belle, 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.”

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”.