Lydia chooses not to tell anyone about her ordeal (Picture: ITV)

As Emmerdale prepares to air a shocking storyline in which Lydia Dingle (Karen Blick) is raped by former childhood friend Craig Reed (Ben Addis), Karen Blick has been telling us about Lydia’s reaction in the aftermath of the brutal attack.

‘The scenes after, when we see Lydia interacting with Craig, they were harder to film than the scenes previous and the attack, in many ways,’ she reflected. ‘You’ve got all these feelings and he’s not acknowledging it. She doubts herself and it’s an absolutely horrendous situation for Lydia.’

Lydia makes the decision that she isn’t going to tell anyone about the rape. ‘That’s important because so many women do do that and the impacts can be wide-ranging for families, for individuals,’ Karen said.

‘As soon as I played the scenes I completely understood why she did not go to the police. I had a real empathy, sympathy, understanding for her behaviour. She feels guilty, she feels ashamed, she feels that it’s somehow her fault, she has put herself in that situation – which is completely incorrect.

‘Lydia is at work when it happens. Lydia is very, very clear to Craig that there is nothing between them. Craig divulges that he’s got feelings for Lydia. She’s clear, concise: “I am married, nothing will happen between us. I love Sam and I love my life.” But Craig doesn’t hear any of that.’

The Emmerdale team have worked closely with Rape Crisis UK on this storyline and their input has helped shaped Lydia’s story in a realistic way, including the decision not to tell anyone about the rape.

Lydia keeps the ordeal to herself mainly to protect her family, Karen told us.

‘She’s fearful about being believed and she does not want to upset her family,’ she said. ‘That’s a big thing. We see Lydia in the aftermath when she goes back to the Dingles’ and Sam (James Hooton) and Mandy (Lisa Riley) are there. She’s thinking about others: “What will this do to Sam?” She just wants it to go away. “I’ll get on with this, I’m going to pretend this has not happened and get on with my life.” I can completely understand why she takes that decision.

‘She’s really close to Mandy, but confiding in Mandy would Mandy tell Sam? She does not want Sam hurt, distressed or upset. Knowing the Dingles as she does, what will happen if Cain (Jeff Hordley) finds out? Will people hound Craig? Will the Dingles seek revenge in some sort of way?’

As time goes on and Lydia tries to continue working for Craig, his behaviour only makes things worse for her, making her doubt herself.

‘That’s the place where it happened, seeing the perpetrator who’s denying it even happened and her version of events,’ Karen pointed out.

‘She’s being gaslighted and that’s just compounding her day to day life and how she’s able to cope or not cope. The self doubt, the feelings of guilt, people are not going to believe her. As time progresses for Lydia that becomes worse. She’s thinking “I’ve become even less credible if I’ve left it this long.” This is all hugely incorrect. It’s all very difficult.’

Karen thinks Lydia could talk to Kim eventually (Picture: ITV)

One of the things that bothers Lydia the most is that she didn’t fight back when the attack happened, as in her terror she froze. Karen explained that this feeds into her guilt but is a common and perfectly natural response to trauma.

‘She feels that somehow she let Craig do this and that in some way means she’s betrayed Sam. She absolutely didn’t, this was something out of her control. When it happens Lydia has a freeze response, so she doesn’t kick, scream, fight, run away. She carries a lot of guilt about that but that is a natural reaction – fight, flight, freeze, fawn – people have different responses when faced with traumatic situations. Some people will fight and some people will just shut down and freeze. Lydia freezes. It’s your body protecting, our subconscious kicks in to try and protect us and it does that in complex ways that we have got no control over. Something dangerous is about to happen to you – don’t move.’

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While Lydia is keeping what happened a secret for now, for all the reasons Karen stated, the actress hopes that going forward her character will be able to confide in someone.

‘I think Kim (Claire King) is an obvious choice,’ she speculated. ‘Kim certainly suspects, because she goes to work the next day for Kim and tries to carry on, but Kim can see things are not quite right and tries to question her. Lydia just shuts down.

‘Kim provides that distance but there’s also that friendship and history that the two women have. I think Kim would be a good, sound source of advice, guidance and support for Lydia. Which is what she needs.’

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Lydia doesn’t tell anyone about her ordeal.