Desperate dad!

Maya gets out, then Jacob vanishes. No wonder David’s tearing his hair out, says Emmerdale’s Matthewwolfenden

David’s worst nightmare comes true in Emmerdale this week when disgraced teacher Maya, who groomed his teenage son Jacob, gets out of prison. The news comes just as it appeared Jacob was moving on from the abuse that had devastated the family. But when Jacob goes missing, David and Jacob’s mum Leyla are terrified their son has gone to meet Maya.

Actor Matthew Wolfenden, who plays David, says, ‘Jacob’s not yet over Maya, but David and Leyla feel he’s turned a corner, that he’s come to terms with the fact that it was abuse, he was underage, he was groomed.

‘He seems to have accepted they’re not going to run off together, which had been his dream. That is until they all find out Maya is being freed.

‘David and Leyla are concerned that this news could set Jacob back massively – and then he vanishes.’

Maya, who was David’s girlfriend during the abuse, was sentenced to a year’s custody in June but has been released early, which Leyla assumes is for good behaviour. Meanwhile, Jacob has started dating Maya’s former stepdaughter Leanna.

When David tells Jacob about Maya, he’s surprised by his reaction. ‘Jacob is strangely cool,’ says Matthew, 39. ‘David asks if he wants to talk about it, but he says, “I’m over it,” and asks to go and meet Leanna.’

But with his parents fearing he’s gone looking for Maya, will they track him down before it’s too late? ‘That’s the big question,’ says Matthew.

Adding to the drama is Jacob’s passionate liaison with Leanna. When her GP dad Liam – Maya’s exhusband – finds out, he accuses Jacob of forcing her into sex and punches him before being arrested.

Matthew says, ‘It’s a typical soap

style tangled web. Like Jacob, Liam has been through a lot, and could now lose his job. It’s all a mess.’

But it’s a ‘mess’ of which Matthew – who’s been in Emmerdale for 13 years – is proud. He worked closely with the Barnardo’s children’s charity for research and is now a patron.

Matthew is a dad himself – he and co-star wife Charley Webb, who plays Debbie Dingle, welcomed third son Ace in July. They also have sons Buster, nine, and Bowie, three, and he says juggling children with work isn’t

easy. ‘I’m more tired, and I do feel guilty about working 12-hour days when I don’t get to do the school run.’

He adds, ‘With Charley at home with the baby and the older two at school and nursery, we manage.

‘But it’s peaks and troughs at work, so I can be quiet for a bit then have long days with the sort of big storylines I have coming over Christmas.’

Matthew wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. ‘I adore the job and the people there. Long may it continue.’ ■