Emmerdale airs devastating scenes as Jacob Sugden rocked by Sarah admission in early ITVX release

Jacob Sugden (Joe-Warren Plant) has been left devastated in Emmerdale.

His wife Sarah (Katie Hill) has been keeping a number of mammoth secrets from him for months – and they've now imploded.

The first of these concerned the death of his workplace bully Dr Caitlin Todd (Caroline Harker). For months, she blackmailed Sarah's gran Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins), before sexually assaulting her and then returning to the village for one final showdown.

Sarah interrupted, pushed her to the ground, and she died during the fall.

Her distant cousin Serena Sugden (Casey Al-Shaqsy) helped to cover up the murder, with Charity ultimately taking the blame.

Sarah wasn't happy with the agreement, though upon learning that the child Charity had carried for her wasn't actually hers, she changed her statement that implied the incident happened in self defence.

In today's episode, Sarah decided to come clean about her 'daughter' Leyla's parentage. It's an awfully awkward situation, as the youngster is actually her aunty.

Charity had fallen pregnant with Ross Barton's (Michael Parr) child instead, though had allowed Sarah and Jacob to believe that Leyla was their own. Several months have passed, they finally have a family together, and the floor has fallen from beneath Sarah's feet.

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She knew that, despite continuing to raise Leyla, she couldn't allow Jacob to live a lie.

In today's episode, she sat down to make the emotional confession. Devastated to learn that the child isn't biologically his, he turned against Sarah for choosing not to tell him straight away.

Her revenge plan on Charity was also backfiring.

In her prison cell, drugs were found beneath the mattress and she was dragged out to a separate room. The officers asserted that it would be easier if she confessed to having the narcotics in her possession, but as they were actually belonging to her cellmate, a strip search was necessary.

While Charity was comfortable with removing the clothes from her upper body, she fell to the floor in tears when they asked to search her lower body. It was only later that one of the officers read her notes and realised she had been a sexual assault victim.

She begged for them to allow her to return home, where the Dingle family were begging Sarah to retract her statement.

What will she do?

Read more:

• Emmerdale star teases "rocky road" for Sarah Sugden - and reveals hopes for Debbie Dingle return
• Emmerdale airs dangerous Sadie King and Robert Sugden alliance in early ITVX release
• Emmerdale legend confirms clashes between Cain Dingle and Sadie King amid dramatic comeback

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 8pm on ITV1 and from 7am on ITVX.

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Authors

Michael Adams is the Soaps Editor at Radio Times, covering all of the hot gossip and spoilers from Weatherfield to Walford, Emmerdale to Hollyoaks and everywhere in-between. He joined the team from Metro, where he spent two years as a Soaps Reporter and previously worked on the sets of both Coronation Street and Emmerdale.