Steph Miligan (Georgia Jay)’s life was turned upside down on Emmerdale recently when she found out the full, horrific truth about her grandfather Anthony Fox (Nicholas Day).
When Steph brought Anthony to the village she tried hard to mend the fractured relationship between him and Ruby (Beth Cordingly), especially as Anthony had terminal cancer.
But what Steph didn’t know was that Anthony had sexually abused Ruby for years when she was young. Ruby was desperate to hide the truth from her daughter and in particular swore that Steph should never find out that her father wasn’t Caleb (William Ash) – but Anthony.
This secret that Ruby had kept to herself for the whole of Steph’s life, not even telling Caleb about the abuse she’d suffered, eventually culminated in people finding out the truth and confronting Anthony.
First Caleb tried to get a confession out of Anthony at gunpoint, but when the abuser fled, he was later found by Aaron (Danny Miller). Venting his own rage after being abused himself, Aaron beat Anthony up and thought he’d killed him, but it was Ruby who ended up killing her father after she found him lying wounded.
A conspiracy of the people involved in the death, which also included John (Oliver Farnworth) who’d disposed of the body and Chas (Lucy Pargeter) and Cain (Jeff Hordley) who helped to cover things up, vowed to stick to their story and protect each other.
Steph, however, was unaware of her granddad’s crimes and knew only that he’d mysteriously vanished and her parents and others were keeping secrets about it from her.
Eventually she found the gun, and threatened to report Caleb and Ruby to the police for Anthony’s disappearance. In desperation and trying to protect Ruby, Caleb told Steph that he’d killed Anthony.
Ruby couldn’t contemplate Caleb going to prison as a result of what she did, and emotionally told Steph what had happened and why. And Steph realised the full truth about her grandfather – and that he was also her father.

In upcoming episodes Steph vanishes, leaving Caleb and Ruby deeply concerned about her state of mind given that she’s dealing with such shattering news.
Eventually, Ruby realises where she can find her daughter and heads to the place in the woods where John Sugden buried Anthony’s body. She pledges that they will get through the trauma together.
But Steph has been thinking about what to do next and has come up with a plan. She gathers together all of those who made a pact to protect each other in the aftermath of Anthony’s death – and tells them what she’s proposing.
Is Steph about to put all of them in serious jeopardy?