BELLE Dingle has a pregnancy scare as abusive Tom King gets worse in Emmerdale.
The couple tied the knot earlier this year, but since their wedding day, Tom has been gradually exerting more control over his oblivious wife.
Their wedding night didn’t end well, after Tom forced Belle to sleep with him before making her sleep on the sofa alone afterwards.
He pressured her for sex again during Monday’s episode despite her initial reluctance.
With Vinny upstairs and the threat of one of the many Dingles arriving home, she pushed him off and told him to stop.
He then turned it all around on her in sickening scenes.
“You made me feel like my dad,” Tom said of rapist and killer Carl King.
“Like you were scared I was about to rape you or something. I know it’s my issue, it’s just… The way you said ‘don’t’. Like there was any possibility that I wouldn’t. It just shocked me.”
Belle told him: “I’m sorry. It’s just me being self-conscious because Vinny’s upstairs.
“It’s me not you. You are nothing like your dad. I feel awful, that I’ve blown this out of proportion.”
In upcoming scenes, Belle worries she could be pregnant.
She takes a test, and is relieved to see that it’s negative, however Tom is visibly disappointed.
Will Tom be keen to rectify this?
The abuse storyline was confirmed in February, with Producer Laura Shaw saying: “Soaps are in the extraordinary position of being able to highlight what happens behind the public face of an abusive relationship, over a longer period of time.
“The audience knows these characters so well, sometimes as well as they might know their own friends and family, and they care deeply about them.
“As harrowing as it can be to watch this type of storyline play out, it’s imperative that we use our platform to shine a light on domestic abuse, and help give a voice to people who have so often been silenced.”
Emmerdale airs on ITV1 and is available on ITVX.
