The feud between Leyla Harding (Roxy Shahidi) and Victoria Sugden (Isabel Hodgins) has been simmering for a while now in Emmerdale and in Tuesday (April 23)’s episode violence exploded when Leyla pushed her adversary one step too far.
Wendy (Susan Cookson) had taken Victoria out for the day after hearing all about her recent troubles. Victoria and Jacob (Joe-Warren Plant) have split up, which was Victoria’s idea but she did it because she feared he was giving up his future prospects to be with her.
Then she was sacked from her job after she managed to get broken glass in a pizza she’d made at the Hide. What she doesn’t know is that the glass was planted there by Jai (Chris Bisson), who was under orders from Eric Pollard (Chris Chittell) to sack Victoria as revenge for breaking Jacob’s heart.
So Wendy thought a bit of time away from the village and a bottomless brunch might make her friend feel better and they headed off.
Meanwhile Leyla had been trying to organise her son’s future and had been on the phone to his university and discovered that the offer of a placement in Berlin was still on the table. Jacob, however, had other ideas.
He was considering taking a break from his studies, he told his mum. He felt out of place on the course and among most of his fellow students and he was hoping there was a chance that he and Victoria could get back together.
This infuriated Leyla, so when she saw Wendy and Victoria arriving back in the village she marched over to have it out with her.
She told a fairly drunk Victoria that Jacob was thinking of deferring his studies because he was hoping to get back with her. Victoria said she had no intention of getting back with Jacob but Leyla said all she had to do was dangle the possibility that it might happen.
‘You’re disgusting,’ Leyla said. ‘You went after his dad and when that didn’t work you just moved on to him. I was right about you from the start.’
Then Leyla delivered the most crushing insult she could have thought of. ‘You’re just as bad as Maya.’
Maya Stepney (Louisa Clein) was formerly David (Matthew Wolfenden)’s girlfriend. While she was in a relationship with David she was also grooming Jacob, who was 15 at the time. She started having sex with him when he was 16. She tried to claim it was a consensual relationship, and abused Jacob for months. She was finally arrested.
While Victoria, like Maya, also started off as David’s girlfriend, obviously there’s no other comparison in the two situations so Victoria was understandably incensed and gave Leyla a hefty punch to the face.
There was zero chance that Leyla would just let that go, so it wasn’t surprising that Victoria got a call later from Emmerdale’s ace law enforcer PC Swirling (Andy Moore) – who arrested her on suspicion of aggravated assault.
As Victoria was marched out to the waiting police car, Leyla was looking on. It remains to be seen how Jacob will react when he hears about this incident.
Will he side with Leyla as she nurses her bruised face, or will he feel that Victoria was the wronged party? Could it have the opposite effect to the one Leyla was hoping for?
