Jimmy King (Nick Miles) came up with a desperate plan to keep his daughter Angelica King (Rebecca Bakes) out of prison in Monday (January 22)’s Emmerdale.
Basically, he coached 14-year-old Angelica to lie to the police about what happened on the night that Heath Hope (Sebastian Dowling) died in a car crash.
Heath’s sister Cathy Hope (Gabrielle Dowling) had taken Wendy Posner (Susan Cookson)’s car to drive herself, Heath and Angelica to a party on New Year’s Eve.
By the time Bob Hope (Tony Audenshaw) and Wendy got to them, the car had careered off the road and crashed. While Cathy and Angelica escaped, Heath died at the scene.
Nicola discovered Angelica’s secret
Cathy has always insisted that, although she took the car, she wasn’t actually behind the wheel when they crashed. This version of events was confirmed to viewers when, after Heath’s funeral, Angelica confessed to her mum Nicola King (Nicola Wheeler) that she was the one who was driving at the time.
While Angelica hoped that the police might be lenient if she told them she was sorry, Jimmy was terrified that because someone had been killed, Angelica could end up being sent to prison for three years.
He couldn’t allow that to happen and began to frame events to show that Cathy had been to blame – for stealing the car in the first place and for allowing a 14-year-old to get behind the wheel – even though Cathy is only 16 herself.
He told Angelica to stick to her original story, that Cathy was driving and Angel had grabbed the steering wheel in panic when the car went out of control. This would explain any fingerprints on the wheel.
Nicola had huge doubts about this plan, worrying both about how it would affect Angel to live with this lie and also about what could happen if Cathy was charged with Heath’s murder.
Nicola had a reminder for Jimmy about a tragedy in his own past. ‘The guilt when you killed Paul. You know better than anyone,’ she said.
In 2021 Jimmy suffered a panic attack while driving his truck and lost control of the vehicle. It ploughed into a barn, which subsequently exploded. Paul Ashdale (Reece Dinsdale), Vinny Dingle (Bradley Johnson)’s abusive father, died in the fire.
After several months of worry that he was headed for a long prison term, Jimmy was eventually found not guilty in court.
Jimmy insisted that was a different situation, but Nicola reminded him that he ‘nearly had a breakdown.’
In return, Jimmy said that Angel wouldn’t cope with prison. ‘Look what happened to Belle,’ he said. ‘Angel won’t survive.’
Belle Dingle (Eden Taylor-Draper) was imprisoned for killing Gemma Andrews (Tendai Rinomhota), after which her mental health deteriorated and she had to be admitted into a psychiatric unit.
Nicola still protested but Jimmy was firm. Their children were the most important thing, he insisted. ‘We will do anything to protect them from harm.’
