Emmerdale star Will Ash has confirmed that his character, Caleb Miligan, will be furious as his ongoing scam storyline develops. He may also be surprised, however, when he works out who’s behind it.
Fresh from duping Eric and Kerry Pollard, the quiet Archie Breckle managed to con Caleb out of £5000 by using sophisticated AI software to create a fake voice of Caleb’s daughter, Steph.
Archie’s actions were discovered by Kerry, but she elected to keep his crimes a secret. Furthermore, in next week’s scenes, she joins forces with the teenager to earn even more money, and faces suspicion from some quarters.
Caleb, meanwhile, remains none the wiser as to who duped him, with Ash teasing: “There’s several things going on. He feels really angry that it’s happened to him, of all people. He thinks he’s smarter than that.”
“He’s also really angry because he thought it was Steph that he was talking to. It feels like a real invasion of his privacy, trust and the love that he has with his daughter, which somebody has used to manipulate the situation.”
“He also feels quite humiliated by the experience just because of his ego – he’s really bruised by it because he’s quite a hard-nosed businessman. He feels like it would never happen to him.”
Naturally, much work goes into investigating who could be behind the scam, with Caleb being torn as to whether the culprit is from overseas or located far closer to home. Ruby also does some digging, but it’s to no avail – so far.
With Eric and Jai closing in on Kerry and Archie, it seems inevitable that the pair will be caught out at some point. Though we don’t know when that will be, we can be sure that Caleb will be full of rage.
“He’ll go absolutely apoplectic,” teased Ash. “He’s humiliated because Archie’s a little kid, and also because he underestimates Kerry, as she can come across a bit empty-headed at times. But she’s not.”
“I don’t think he realises that she’s quite smart and savvy with this stuff – she’s got her finger on the pulse. So, to find out that these two have taken him for a ride would make him really furious,” added the actor, who joined the ITV soap in 2022.
