David Metcalfe (Matthew Wolfenden) came to his senses over his plan to keep daughter Amba (Ava Jayasinghe) in the village in tonight’s Emmerdale (26th January) – as Priya Sharma (Fiona Wade) sped up her exit plans.
The hapless father made a snap decision earlier in the week, after learning that Priya would be moving to London with their little girl. Having heard the details by accident, David was furious that Priya hadn’t got round to telling him, and he took off to a remote cottage with Amba and his younger son Theo.
Meanwhile, back in the village, Priya assumed that David was elsewhere with the kids, at a location pre-arranged with an old friend of his father Eric Pollard (Chris Chittell). Pollard and Jacob Gallagher (Joe-Warren Plant) grew worried when they couldn’t contact David, and as the man himself continued to ignore a series of calls from Priya and his family, everyone realised that something was wrong.
Priya headed to David’s shop, where she noted the looks of concern from both Pollard and Jacob. As it dawned on her that David had snatched Amba and gone into hiding, Priya was furious. But the two men pleaded with her to give David more time – trying to convince her that he would never resort to kidnap.
David lied to Amba that his phone had ran out of battery – but while he was out of the room, she took a call from her grandad Eric, telling him she was in a cottage with her dad and Theo. David panicked, before hearing a knock at the door. Leyla Cavanagh (Roxy Shahidi) had tracked him down, citing poor password practices on his email account which allowed her to find the receipt for hiring the cottage.
Although things had been tense between David and Leyla ever since Jacob’s attack, Leyla tried to reason with David over running away, which she claimed was all she had done herself over the past year. When David dismissed her words, Leyla tried to call the police, and he locked her in one of the bedrooms.
David then rounded up the kids and drove away again. Leyla arrived home, having escaped, and explained that she had found David but failed to get through to him. Priya set about calling the police, only for David to reappear with Amba and Theo at the last second.
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Apologising for his behaviour, David revealed that he had planned to drive somewhere else remote – until Amba asked whether her mummy knew where they were going, prompting him to turn around and head back to the village.
Priya managed to forgive David, but insisted that this must never happen again. Later, as she chatted to brother Jai Sharma (Chris Bisson), Priya grew frustrated when their dad Rishi (Bhasker Patel) tried to persuade her not to leave.
This prompted her to announce that she and Amba were no longer waiting until next week to move away – they would now be going the following day. Will Priya have a happy send-off?
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Emmerdale airs weekdays at 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide or visit our Soaps hub.
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