He’s become one of the most hated characters Emmerdale has ever had, but is it finally time for Pierce Harris to get his comeuppance and leave the show?
After subjecting partner Rhona Goskirk to manipulative and controlling behaviour, as well as forcing her to have sex when she wasn’t in the mood, things ended up getting a whole lot worse when he raped her on their wedding night.
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It was this that finally made Rhona see his true colours and tell him they were over.
She went to the police and reported what had happened, and although she let them take all the physical evidence they needed, she couldn’t bring herself to name her husband as her attacker.
He eventually left town after she told him in no uncertain terms she never wanted to see him again, but as Rhona relapsed into her painkiller addiction, this week sees Paddy Kirk decide to be helpful and hunt Pierce down.
Paddy tells the nasty lawyer he needs to come home and help Rhona through this and Pierce seizes the opportunity to return.
Rhona’s stunned when she sees him in her kitchen, and it’s been revealed that this is what finally prompts her to give his name to the police.
But will that be an end to it? Is Pierce going to go down and never be seen again.
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Sadly not. According to actors Johnathan Wrather and Zoe Henry, who play Pierce and Rhona, there’s still a long way to go in this storyline.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Johnathan revealed: “On so many levels, in a show like this, this kind of character has to be seen to have their comeuppance.
“Someone asked me: is Pierce rehabilitable? I think he may have been at some point, in the not too distant past, but it’s gone beyond that.
“I think there’s scope to do some interesting things with the story which are consistent with case studies with regard to does he get named, does he go down for it, does he get off with it, what happens after that, can he exist, be involved in another relationship, all those kinds of things.”
He added that he “genuinely didn’t know” himself how the story would play out, but by the sounds of it we’ve still got some twists to come.
Zoe went on to say the difficulty the soap now had was that although people want Pierce to get his comeuppance, the real-life conviction rate for this type of crime in the UK is actually very low.
“I think as a soap and going out at the time we go out, we have a responsibility to tell that, but there is a truth in the fact that it doesn’t always end the way you want it to.
“I don’t think I can talk about stuff we’re shooting at the moment but there’s an element of that that happens in something I shot the other day.
“The main thing is we don’t want to deter women from reporting situations like this, so it’s a fine line.”
It all sounds a bit cryptic to us, but we think that means Pierce will be punished for his crimes – one way or another – but it might not happen for a while yet…