It’s the day of reckoning for Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) in Emmerdale.

For months he’s been fighting off the truth coming out that he was involved in covering up Ray Walters’ (Joe Absolom) killing while trying to protect his dad from going to prison for murder, but enough is enough for the strung-out vet.

The whole hoopla started to unravel when a sneaky DS Walsh spotted some rope in the vet surgery, surreptitiously took a photo, then hit Paddy with the fact she knew it was the same rope dead Ray was found tied up in.

Paddy protested that lots of vets used that rope. But it was too much of a coincidence that this particular vet had a vested interest in the death of the drug dealer.

While trying to protect himself, Paddy’s also been trying to protect an increasingly fragile Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards), who broke his bail conditions by assaulting Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant) in the hospital and going AWOL. To save him from being locked up on remand, Paddy shoved him into a mental health facility.

DS Walsh gave the cold warning that with any sign of improvement, Bear would be hauled out and straight into jail, adding even more pressure to the stressed-out vet.

Bear faces yet another round of questioning and is taken by surprise by DS Walsh’s new approach – that as a wrestler, he knew exactly what he was doing in throttling Ray. Pushed to his limit, Bear seems to lose it and screams that he intentionally killed Ray while acting alone. While he’s managed to maintain the lie, this is bad news.

Actor Dominic Brunt told Metro: ‘He [Paddy] just thinks the game is over and they’re all going to prison. He thinks that’s the end of the line. Even if they tell the truth now, they’ve spent so much time lying.’

So now Bear is facing a life sentence and Paddy is feeling like even more of a dog than he was.

Paddy laments over how Bear was held in captivity for months, the horrors he faced at the hands of Ray and Celia. The conditions he was kept in. The nightmare he lived. Paddy is desperate to free him and decides now is the time to come clean on his part in Ray’s death.

Dylan Penders (Fred Kettle) remains by his side and vows to do it with him and Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley) is heartbroken but encourages them that the truth is the only way forward.

‘She says you need to tell the truth,’ Dominic revealed. ‘The truth is the best way and they should’ve done that from the start. She’s scared of losing the new family unit they’ve got.’

Paddy must right this wrong, and together they trudge to the police station. Mandy is forced to hug her boys one last goodbye.

But they are fools to think that by coming clean things will magically get better – instead, they get exponentially worse – they are told they will be charged with perverting the course of justice.

This is a worst-case scenario, and both face their own prison time. They must pivot to try and rescue this situation. If they can find a witness proving Ray intended to kill Dylan, it might solve their problems. They turn to Laurel Thomas (Charlotte Bellamy), who was the last one to see Ray before he went over to see Paddy and Bear.