With Tom King (James Chase) now firmly behind bars after his trial in December on Emmerdale, Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper) is slowly rebuilding her life. And in Monday (February 3)’s episode she took a massive step towards this.
When Belle and Tom were first married, one of the first things he did in his campaign of control and coercion against her was to get her to give up her job.
Belle had been offered work with Suzy (Martelle Edinborough) and Leyla (Roxy Shahidi) at Take A Vow after she showed flair for dealing with clients. This came after Belle had been her own boss in a wellness business. She was smart, ambitious and keen to build a career.
As Tom systematically demolished Belle’s self-esteem and sought to isolate her from her family and friends, he knew that one of the best ways to do that would be to stop her from working.
He used a full range of manipulative techniques, from lying about the job offer from Suzy, to sabotaging her clients, and even cutting his own hand so Belle would have to drop what she was doing to rush and see him.
Belle eventually gave in and agreed to stop work, and after that her world became much smaller as Tom tried to control every aspect of her life.
We became used to seeing her looking downtrodden and sad, completely different from the bright, confident person she’d been.
In a special episode in September which played out three different versions of how Belle’s story could play out, one of the versions saw Belle once again working at Take A Vow, having escaped from Tom. It was incredibly striking seeing Belle how we used to see her in a massive contrast to her actual reality.
Eventually Tom’s reign of terror ended when Belle was able to take back some control by telling people what he had done. She bravely disclosed the abuse she’d suffered to Charity (Emma Atkins) and was later able to tell the police.
Tom was eventually arrested and incriminating photos and videos that he’d made of Belle using hidden cameras were found on his tablet. But at the trial it was Belle’s powerful evidence that saw him finally locked away.
Back to the current episode, and Belle popped into Take A Vow looking for Mandy (Lisa Riley).
Suzy and Leyla were thrilled to see her and very quickly asked her to come back to work. After only a moment’s hesitation she said yes – and seemed happy and excited to be taking this massive step into a new life after Tom.
Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 or stream from 7am on ITVX.
