It’s a storyline that continues to both horrify and grip Emmerdale viewers, and it can now be revealed that there is another big peak to come in the chilling saga of Belle Dingle’s (Eden Taylor-Draper) abuse at the hands of her monstrous husband Tom King (James Chase).
Following their wedding, Belle’s marriage and life fell quickly to ruins, with Tom exerting frightening levels of control on her.
Spying on her, isolating her from family and gaslighting her, Tom followed up his ongoing coercive abuse with violent acts too.
More recently, after Belle took the decision to terminate her pregnancy, fans have hoped she might be able to escape her husband’s grips, especially with relatives such as Charity (Emma Atkins) sensing something is seriously wrong.
It’s because of this intervention from her loved ones that Tom plots to sweep Belle away from the village altogether – and there will be a real fear that she may never return.
When he does take her to a remote cottage in Wales, what is sold to her as a short holiday away soon descends into hell.
But what does Tom have in store and will Belle see her family again?
Tom will do anything to keep Belle under his control (Picture: ITV)
It’s the centrepiece of a special Emmerdale episode in coming weeks, with producer Sophie Roper dropping some details to Metro.co.uk.
‘Belle and Tom is obviously a huge storyline for us at the moment, an incredibly important if not difficult storyline to watch at moments. It’s resonating with our audience because it’s such a huge, real issue.
‘We’re continuing with that story and trying to be really truthful to those kind of relationships. We’ve got a special episode coming up that sees Tom and Belle head off to Wales on a trip away together.
‘Tom is very much isolating Belle from her family, from her surroundings, from everything that she knows and loves, which is very much unfortunately a typical trait of abusers.
‘It will be difficult drama at moments, but a really important message and a really important story we’re keen to continue to tell.’
So, did Emmerdale actually head to Wales in a rare opportunity for some over the border location filming?
Well, the next best thing – the design team have been working overtime, Sophie told us.
‘Actually we recreated Wales in Yorkshire with our fantastic design team! We’ve got a cottage up in the village that we’ve re-dressed and made this beautiful Welsh retreat.
‘It’s really fantastic the lengths that they’ve gone to to create that in our world. The story, of course, though set to the backdrop of this beautiful cottage, will be really hard-hitting and difficult at moments.’
The plotline continues to divide viewers but has won lots of praise for the writing and acting which has made it such an understandably difficult watch.
The cottage episode will serve as a big crescendo in the saga – but don’t expect things to end there.
Sophie’s colleague Laura Shaw previously told Metro.co.uk: ‘We said right from the beginning that we wanted to tell this story as authentically and truthfully as we can’ she told us.
‘Let’s face it, for people who are subjected to domestic abuse this isn’t something that’s over in a couple of weeks, it’s something that goes on for a long length of time and we wanted to be truthful to that.
‘I think we’ve always had a good idea in our heads exactly where we wanted it to end, if I’m honest.
‘Obviously we’ve found new twists and turns as we’ve gone through but we’ve always had a pretty clear picture in our heads of where it would end.’
Actor James Chase also indicated a comeuppance for his vile alter-ego Tom, adding:
‘He can’t get away with it. I don’t know to what extent that would be, or how the storyline would end but I would think it would have to be something like that because she needs justice for what’s happened to her.
‘The viewer needs that, for 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. If there is a certain end point you know you can push it really far.’