Emmerdale airs ‘disturbing’ sexual assault scene leaving fans feeling ‘physically sick’

Emmerdale aired a ‘horrendous’ scene involving sexual assault at the end of Sunday night’s episode (Image: ITV)

Charity Dingle became the victim of a “horrendous” sexual assault on Sunday night’s episode of Emmerdale. The Woolpack landlady, who has been played by Emma Atkins since 2000, has become mixed up in the evil ways of Dr Caitlin Todd (Caroline Harker), who is well aware of the secrets and lies that surround baby Leyla.

Charity gave birth to the little one in April, having claimed to have been acting as a surrogate for her granddaughter Sarah Sugden and her husband Jacob. In truth, Charity slept with Ross Barton and fell pregnant with his child, and Sarah and Jacob are unaware that their baby is not biologically their own. Dr Todd, who bullied student nurse Jacob relentlessly before her retirement from Hotten General, discovered the truth and has been using the information to blackmail Charity out of money ever since.

On the latest episode of the ITV soap, which aired at the end of the weekend after being rescheduled due to the football, Dr Todd called in on Charity and saw that she had been hitting the bottle to cope but continued to demand more money. Dr Todd said: “Gosh. Very few women can carry off that mad drunk thing, but you? Actually quite sexy!

Dr Todd has been blackmailing Charity Dingle for weeks (Image: ITV)

“I want my money now. Otherwise, I’ll…” Charity asked what was coming next, and Todd threatened: ” Blood test results are all good to go.” Charity told her to go for it because she hadn’t anything left to give her as she pleaded: ” I have begged, and I have borrowed, and I have stolen. Yeah, stolen from the people I love, because unlike you, I have people who love me who I also love back.”

Unfazed, Todd said: “I will tell Sarah and Jacob everything,” but Charity shot back: “Go do it, cos like I say, I’ve nothing left to give. So, do you know what? Ruin me. Detonate me. I don’t care. In fact, I know what we’ll do. Let’s go and do it together. Come on. No, come on. You and me, b****!” as Todd laughed.

Along with Todd, Charity stumbled over to the pub, where Sarah was busy prepping for her birthday party, when she suddenly decided to threaten Todd herself and warned her that she had her own reputation to think about as well and they went back to the house for a confrontation.

Todd raged to Charity: “I have been going through the same. People ruining things for me and costing me money and my job and making it out that I was always at fault. Yes, it was unfair! But it helped me to know that someone else was having an equally tough time.”

Dr Todd assaulted Charity and then got up and left the house without a word(Image: ITV)

Just when it looked like they called a truce, Todd leaned in to kiss Charity and she instantly rejected her and fell into fits of giggles as she drunkenly called her a “desperate, pathetic witch.” When Charity fell asleep on the sofa, Todd looked over her and coldly said: “Wake up. Drunk, disgusting w****! One too many? Bad, bad girl. You should know better… ..than to lose control.”

Todd climbed on top of Charity as she lay sleeping, and she could he heard unzipping her trousers. Charity awoke in horror as she realised what was going on and begged her to get off. Charity sat bolt upright and Todd simply got up, collected her things and walked out.

Viewers of the Yorkshire-based serial instantly took to social media to react to the shock scene, with one writing on X: “The SA scene in #Emmerdale is horrendous, please take care of yourselves, very difficult watch. Charity [crying emoji].I can’t post the clip its so disturbing.”

Another said: “Did #emmerdale have a warning for last night’s episode? They should have done because that was grim,” and another said: “I can’t watch I think the writers have gone too far,” as a fourth wrote: “I didn’t see the warning. I’m physically ill.”

However, others were quick to praise the soap for tackling such a subject, with one writing: “Last night’s #emmerdale is an extremely difficult watch but it was handled absolutely perfectly. Amazing performances from Emm Aatkins & Caroline Harker and the directing of the end scene by Yvonne Wells & Haley Muraleedharan was outstanding. please take care when watching.”

Another said: “This storyline WILL help so many people. it doesn’t matter the gender, SA happens. lets open that conversation and get victims justice.”