Emmerdale’s producer Kate Oates and star Natalie Anderson have explained why they thought the soap’s controversial sex attack storyline was the right thing to do.

Natalie’s character Alicia Metcalfe was shown last night being sexually assaulted by teen Lachlan White (Thomas Atkinson) as she lay sleeping on the sofa and the ITV soap will show how the attack affects both families involved.

Soap boss Kate said at a recent press event: “It’s obviously a challenging thing to explore at 7pm, so it certainly wasn’t an easy thing to do but I’m glad that we’ve been able to approach it. We talked initially about whether Alicia would be raped. We discussed that at length, but we decided that didn’t necessarily have to be the story.

Emmerdale
Alicia (Natalie Anderson) and Lachlan (Thomas Atkinson) feature in the storyline (ITV)

“It was difficult to get the right tone. We also talked to Natalie about what she was comfortable with.

“Tom is a young actor, so we had meetings with him, his chaperone and the director too. It’s a massive expectation to ask a teenage boy who’s new to soap to play this kind of role. Tom has been really fearless with it though, and I really take my hat off to him.”

Natalie told What’s On TV of Kate telling her about the plot: “It was a real curveball for me. I was really shocked by it. However, I could completely understand why she’d picked our family.

Emmerdale
Thomas Atkinson and Natalie Anderson as their Emmerdale characters (ITV)

“I was nervous and if I can use the word, I was excited as well because I knew that we had a really good story to tell.

“When I went away and did my research, I was like, ‘Absolutely, we need to do this storyline’. It really opened my eyes a lot. As shocking as it was, I felt like it was something I really wanted to do.”