Emmerdale spoilers follow from Tuesday’s episode (2 December), which is available to watch now on ITVX and YouTube but hasn’t yet aired on ITV1.

Emmerdale villain Ray Walters steps up his attempts to manipulate Bear Wolf tonight – with another cruel lie about his family. As Bear continues to fret about how much he misses his loved ones, ruthless Ray schemes to take control of the situation yet again.

While Bear recently thwarted an attempt to escape from Celia Daniels’ farm with two of the other workers, he still hasn’t forgotten about how much he misses his son Paddy Dingle. In emotional scenes tonight, he asks Ray for his phone back so that he can finally make contact.

Ray’s latest excuses about Bear’s supposedly broken phone don’t get him anywhere, so he’s quickly forced to change tactics to falsely make out that Bear’s family have stopped caring about him.

“This is awkward,” Ray begins. “I’m really sorry, Ted, but I was trying to spare your feelings.

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“I had your phone fixed a while back. And I was gonna tell you, but the thing is, there’s not been one phone call since, or text. Nothing.”

He adds: “They have not tried to contact you, mate. I should have said something. I thought best let sleeping dogs lie, eh?”

The reality back in the main village is very different, as Paddy speaks to his wife Mandy and friends Rhona Goskirk and Marlon Dingle about how it’s Bear’s birthday.

Paddy would love nothing more than to have his dad back after his mysterious disappearance, but will Bear ever realise that Ray is feeding him a pack of lies?

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Fans can see how Bear responds to Ray’s claims when tonight’s episode airs at 7.30pm on ITV1, or it’s streaming early now on ITVX and YouTube.

Joshua Richards, who plays Bear, recently spoke about how Ray is so successful in manipulating his troubled character.

“A lot of it is pointing out that ‘sometimes your previous life was absolutely dreadful’, ‘aren’t things better now because you can trust me?’ It’s like giving a dog treats,” Joshua said.

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“It’s very clever manipulation. It’s very insidious. You can bit by bit instil in somebody that you are needed by them for their very existence, Ray is very successful at doing that because he has a natural charm and an ability to get under people’s skin.”

Asked how Paddy might react if he discovered the truth, Joshua replied: “I think Paddy would be absolutely horrified. To be honest with you, I don’t think it would be right to say he should feel any guilt for it, this is all of Bear’s doing really. If he saw the circumstances Bear is in, he’d absolutely horrified.”

Emmerdale is working on Bear’s storyline alongside The Salvation Army and Unseen. Further help, support and resources relating to the issue of modern slavery are available on the charities’ websites.

Emmerdale airs on weeknights at 7.30pm on ITV1, and streams on ITVX.

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