Emmerdale star Natalie Ann Jamieson has explained why she left the soap, saying at first she didn’t realise her character Amy Wyatt was going to be killed off.

In last night’s episode, Amy died after the limousine she was travelling in crashed into an icy lake. Amy fell through the ice and later died in hospital.

Speaking to The Mirror, Jamieson explained why she was ready to exit the soap, saying: “I had been asking for meetings about what was coming up for Amy and saying that I’d really like some challenging, new stuff.

“They knew they had this coming up and they didn’t have anything planned for Amy – and that was the direction that I wanted to go in.”

She continued: “I worked out that this was going to be Amy’s exit and I didn’t know it was going to be death at first. When they told me, I was like, ‘Oh!’ It’s really hard to know whether you would prefer for your character to die if you’re going, or to go in the back of a taxi.

“There’s always a chance that you could potentially go back and you’ve got all your friends there and you love to work there,” Jamieson explained. “However, you are just going in the back of a taxi and the show were like, ‘We want to give her something big.’”

Describing how they filmed the icy stunt, Jamieson said she spent a whole day filming the scene in an Emmerdale set car park.

“The lake was made of wax and there was a hole that was built for the size of me,” she explained. “The ice was thinner and underneath, there was freezing cold water. I had a wetsuit on and it was two o’clock in the morning. I was really scared about that bit.”