Emmerdale star Joshua Richards has explained Bear Wolf’s big bombshell next week, as he finally faces the music over the death of Ray Walters. The character recently killed the villainous Ray while traumatised, after being held captive as a slave.

In tonight’s scenes, Bear will hand himself in to the police after confessing to the death, and is set to be charged with manslaughter next week.

Opening up about Bear’s decision to plead guilty, Joshua told us that his character has “this mistaken sense of honour, and that he’s got to own up to what he did, even though he was totally unaware of what he did at the time he was doing it”.

“And it’s just this old-fashioned sort of ‘Well, I did it, therefore I should take the consequences,’” he added. “It’s misguided and wrong, but he firmly believes that that’s the honourable thing to do.”

This of course raises fears for son Paddy, who has been helping Bear to cover things up, Joshua noting: “He’s desperately trying not to reveal those facts to the police, to Walsh. But, of course, it’s a tricky situation when you’re under interrogation, and it’s easy to confuse people.

“So hopefully, you know, Bear is going in there to say ‘I did it, leave everybody else alone, they’re nothing to do with it.’ But police have ways of tripping you up.”

Despite Bear’s fragile mental state, the police officer “is particularly ruthless and obviously wants to get this crime sorted” alongside nailing “as many people as possible”.

“Her remit seems to be quite wide with Moira after Cain and after Paddy, after Dylan, after me,” he added. “She doesn’t want one person, she wants everybody.”

Reflecting on Bear’s mind when he’s charged with manslaughter, Joshua shared: “I think, in his mind, taking a life is taking a life, it’s a life for a life.

“As a very old-fashioned… even if it was in self-defence, not in the right frame of mind, in fact, almost being a victim of a nervous breakdown and being practically insane at the time. He still believes that he should take the consequences.”