Charity admits the shocking truth about her baby secret with Ross in Emmerdale

Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) has been suffocating under the weight of her guilt for weeks and it only gets worse when she learns that the baby she’s carrying isn’t granddaughter Sarah Sugden’s (Katie Hill) and her boyfriend Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant), it’s actually her and Ross Barton’s (Michael Parr).

Charity agreed to be a surrogate for Sarah after it became clear that any traditional surrogacy route would be unwilling to help, due to Sarah’s fanconi anemia diagnosis.

Though it drove an enormous wedge between her and husband Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb), Charity was dedicated to seeing the surrogacy through and, after the first attempt failed, Sarah was utterly elated when Charity was confirmed pregnant.

Note, Sarah was elated, Charity, on the other hand, was notably less so.

As it turns out, prior to the embryo transfer, following an almighty blow-up with Mack, Charity turned to ex lover Ross for comfort and after the two slept together, Charity was totally unsure as to who’s baby she was carrying.

Though she turned briefly to ex-girlfriend Vanessa Woodfield (Michelle Hardwick), admitting the baby may not be Sarah’s, she stopped short of correcting Vanessa when she assumed Mack was the father.

Ross, meanwhile, is like a dog with a bone and desperate to find out whether or not the child Charity is carrying is his.

With Ross failing to be discrete enough in his hounding of Charity, her cousin Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) has clocked the clandestine chats between the two.

Charity’s guilt has increased tenfold upon the return of Mack, who’s spent weeks as a prisoner in unhinged John Sugden’s (Oliver Farnworth) bunker.

When a DNA test confirms Charity’s worst fears, she’s utterly despondent and, when Chas probes about her current state, Charity finally breaks.

‘They have a conversation, and then it just spills out of her, and there’s no going back after that release. Unfortunately, Chas takes the higher moral ground and says, ‘Under no circumstances can you not consider telling everyone, you have to come clean.

‘And obviously, Charity is horrified that her best friend, her cousin, is telling her to do the right thing morally. She says, ‘You cannot take this lie into the baby being born, and present Sarah with a child that’s not even hers.’

Charity, feeling completely unable to handle the situation, decides then to have an abortion.

‘She feels it’s the only way out. To maybe just try and make it go away and bury it once and for all, and it’s such a an immoral thing that she’s considering doing, but she feels it’s her only option at this point. She feels this is her only option, even though it is also awful, an unbearable, unforgivable act.’

When she returns home, Sarah presents her with a box of keepsakes for the baby, and invites Charity to write a letter to place inside. Charity, meanwhile, struggles to stomach the idea.

‘The worst thing is she’s got to cover it all up. So it’s all going on inside and on the surface she’s got to sustain this calmness and this acceptance. The audience get to see that level of horror in Charity’s eyes, but obviously she can’t show it to Sarah.’ 

While we can’t reveal the outcome of Charity’s decision, one thing we can reveal – whatever her actions may be won’t make the situation go away.

‘It will simmer for a while, and then, obviously, we know that secrets and lies do have a way of coming out, one way or another, of course. There’s so much riding on this.’