Not ideal.
During last night’s episode of Emmerdale, Charity Dingle took to the witness stand to provide evidence against DI Bails in an attempt to send him to prison.
The policeman raped Charity when she was 14-years-old, and last night she attended court to face Bails’s defence team.
During this segment of the soap, the issue of consent was raised as Charity tried to argue that she was assaulted and that the DI took advantage of her when she was a teenager.
However, seeing as Charity was only 14-years-old when the rape occurred, the issue of consent shouldn’t have been brought up by a lawyer at all as she was too young to legally give consent.
Many people watching last night’s programme were aware of this fact and they took to Twitter to criticise the soap for getting the information wrong.
Viewers said they were “confused” by the focus of the trial, and urged the Emmerdale writers to do better.
“I’m really confused by this trial,” said one person. “Charity was clearly underage when Ryan was born, Bails has admitted she was underage on the stand, how is he not instantly charged for that? How is that a defence?”
“Eh so what I don’t get is how Charity was 14 but her age didn’t seem to matter to the defence counsel?” said another.
“Can someone explain why the fact that vile Bails slept with Charity (and raped her) when she was ONLY 14 isn’t the primary point of this trial,” asked another.
It remains to be seen what the verdict of Bails’s trial will be, but the case will take its toll on Charity’s mental health over time leading to her suffering from depression.
Emmerdale continues tonight at 7pm on Virgin Media One.
