Who pushed Emmerdale's Joe Tate and is he dead? Prime suspect spills on big cliffhanger

As soap cliffhangers go, it was quite the jawdropper.

Tonight (Thursday, 8 May), fans watched as villainous was pushed from a bedroom window and landed face down on the concrete below. It was a grisly comeuppance that many in the Dales may have felt he deserved after his part in the recent limo crash, which killed off three huge names.

But which one of Emmerdale’s grieving characters gave him the potentially fatal shove?

Ever since Who Shot JR and Who Killed Dirty Den, soaps have loved a good old-fashioned revenge whodunnit. And the one thing more fun than watching it all play out is getting to be one of the suspects - as actress , aka Kerry Wyatt, can attest.

Her character lost her daughter Amy (played by Natalie Ann Jamieson) after Joe (played by Ned Porteus) drugged Noah Dingle, causing him to stumble onto the road and send the limo plunging into a frozen lake in the soap’s biggest stunt for years.

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“Kerry definitely has good reason to kill Joe and get revenge,” Laura teases. “We know she's a loose cannon and unpredictable. Her daughter was all Kerry had.”

Emmerdale is keeping tight-lipped on whether Joe makes a recovery. But Laura’s character is one of a handful of suspects that will come under the microscope in the coming days and weeks. Could she be the one who gave him the push?

It turns out Laura was pretty miffed with Joe's storyline in real life too, as the other victims were Suzy Merton (played by Martelle Edinborough) and Leyla Harding (played by ). That's the same Roxy who is her real life best friend and who she no longer gets to hang out with every day on set.

“Roxy is one of my best mates, you know, it was hard dragging her across the ice in those scenes after the crash!” says Laura, 43. “It was just genuinely emotional. We sobbed when we found out .

“There was one scene where Natalie was supposed to be completely out of it in a hospital bed and I had to come in and hold her and cuddle her - and she was crying her eyes out.

“The crew were saying you’re not going to be able to do that on a take, you’re supposed to be dead!

“But we were just so emotional because you play mother and daughter. Even weirdly, she feels like my little girl, even though there’s not that massive age gap in real life.“

But the soap, which Laura first joined back in 2012, hasn’t just given Laura good friends, it’s given her a family too - she met her actor fiancé of seven years, Mark Jordon, 60, on set and they now have two beautiful children, Jesse, four, and two-year-old Ronnie.

“A huge chunk of my life has been Emmerdale,” she says. “A lot has happened to me.”

The Newcastle-born actress and Mark got engaged in 2018 but have yet to set a date. “Things just kept getting in the way. And then we had children. It will happen when the time is right,” says Laura.

The delay in tying the knot has been due to having far more important priorities. Both children have a rare genetic condition called Usher Syndrome that is currently incurable.

Jesse and Ronnie were born deaf, which is a symptom of Usher Syndrome, and wear hearing aids. It also causes retinitis pigmentosa or RP, a disease of the retina cells leading to night blindness, tunnel vision and, eventually, a total loss of vision.

“It tends to be teenage years, around 14 and 15, when they could be affected,” says Laura. “So we’ve got this ticking time bomb. And that’s why Mark and I are just doing as much fundraising and awareness as we can. That's our focus. The challenges we’ll meet is when the vision starts to be affected but we’re a good hopefully ten years away from that now.”

For now, the couple are focused on finding a cure for their children’s condition. As patrons of the charity Cure Usher, they have placed their faith in genetic eye diseases expert Mariya Moosajee, Professor of Molecular Ophthalmology at UCL and the Francis Crick Institute in London.

Laura says: “The science is there, the talent is there. The funding isn’t because it’s a rare condition and no one’s heard of it. She’s not getting the funding, but she thinks she’s about 10 years away from finding it.”

The children’s condition was down to unlucky genetics. “I’ve been a carrier and never known about it,” explains Laura. “Mark was a carrier and never knew. [So] we met each other. We had a baby.

“We were both told there was a 75% chance our children wouldn’t inherit it.”

The odds may have been in their favour, but the outcome was not. But Laura was already pregnant with Ronnie when Jesse was diagnosed. “They asked me if I wanted to find out about the risks of Ronnie having the condition - while I was pregnant,” she recalls.

“And I was like, no, because it wouldn’t make any difference. I knew in my heart that she did have Usher syndrome just like Jesse.

“Even though the nurses were saying, ‘Don’t worry, the odds are on your side’ - [but] I just knew. I don’t know whether that is my female intuition....”

Laura had her best friend on set - until recently - to help her through the long, gruelling hours, but the actress takes some comfort in knowing her children both have a friend at their side for life.

“There is that small consolation that they have each other. They will never feel alone, and I am so grateful for that”, she says. “I think it was all meant to be. I know have these two beautiful children....and they’re going to [always] have somebody to go through it with.“

Every few weeks the children have their ear mold replaced. “Jesse goes for colours to match whatever superhero he is into at the time. At the moment they are green for the hulk,” reveals Laura.

“Ronnie got pink ones. And when we were at the audiologist the other day, Jesse picked Ronnie’s hearing aids up and went, 'these are her Barbie ears'."

While Laura has long days filming her current Emmerdale storylines, Mark is holding the fort at home. “Mark is at home with the kids but he's got something coming up workwise next month which is exciting,” she says.

“He's an amazing dad, I came home the other day and the kids were so happy - knackered though and filthy because he takes them out all day. I’ve learnt a lot from him as a parent. I mean he’s been there and done it once before.“

Mark was previously married to actress Siobhan Finneran, with whom he has two children, Poppy, 24, and Joseph, 26.

“The young Jordan siblings are very close to the older ones," says Laura. “They are very close to their half-brother and half sister. They absolutely love Poppy and Jo. It was . Even when they were tiny, they knew they were related.

“We had friends coming round all the time, some a similar age to Poppy and Joseph, but they just knew they were family.”

Laura first met Mark when he joined Emmerdale as Daz Spencer, the brother of Kerry’s boyfriend Dan. ”Mark was only on set three or four weeks,” she recalls.

“Then we didn’t see each other for a really long time. And then he came back to Emmerdale for a bit, and we became friends - we were on the phone a lot - but not in a million years did I think we’d end up together. I couldn’t imagine my life without him now. He is phenomenal.”

It was her best friend Roxy who also helped Laura get in the “best shape of her life.” Viewers will have noticed Laura is noticeably slimmer than when she first appeared as 'trashy tart with a heart' Kerry.

Laura explains, “One day after a long day filming she took me to a Hot Yoga class. Roxy is a yoga teacher herself and Yoga fanatic.

“It was hilarious - we ended up holding hands at the end of it. Afterwards, said ‘I’m not going back. I’ll just do it myself’ because she’s a control freak. I got addicted to it and went back and was going any time I could for a year!”

Mark meanwhile is planning his exercise fix of sorts, by doing a wing walk in July - strapping himself to a wing of a plane - with a few of the Emmerdale lads to raise money for a charity helping fight Usher Syndrome.

It’s going to be terrifying - but at least he’s not taking the plunge, like poor old Joe.

Emmerdale continues tomorrow Friday on ITV1 , 7.30pm