It’s fair to say that April Windsor’s (Amelia Flanagan) storyline in Emmerdale has been a difficult watch – it has to be, in order to be believable and to do the issue of county lines drug trafficking and sex slavery justice.

But some fans have been left so uncomfortable with the material that recent scenes have prompted them to make official complaints.

Most likely an issue to do with the pre-watershed timeslot containing harrowing material, Ofcom has received 60 complaints relating to a scene where a sex abuser called Callum attempted to rape April after Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths) sold her for sex.

Terrified, April made a bid to escape but when Callum turned aggressive, she fought back, clubbing him over the head with a vodka bottle.

Thinking she had killed him, April begged Celia and Ray (Joe Absolom) for help, and they arranged to cover it up, with evil Celia then telling April she was in her debt even more – now she owns her.

Viewers later discovered that Callum had in fact survived and Ray told the creep that April wouldn’t be a problem.

But for now, April thinks she’s a killer.

In a heart-wrenching episode which followed, April contemplated telling Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) everything, and imagined how the conversation might go, with Marlon being characteristically supportive and fighting for his daughter.

But, Celia’s threat of killing Marlon if she ever breathed a word rang in her ears, and she visualised a scenario where Marlon was shot dead.

Fearing this would be the outcome, April remained silent about her ordeal and there are more dark scenes to come, which likely means more calls to Ofcom.

However, many have praised recent episodes, not least of all for the performances of young star Amelia.

She has had a huge year on the show, tackling storylines such as homelessness, baby loss and now grooming.

And Mark can’t praise his co-star – who has been with the show since a very young age – enough for growing into the role and smashing it out of the park.

He enthused to Metro: ‘I’ve said it so many times now, she is a remarkable actress and she can summon emotion on the spot, she’s got older and she she does this thing now where you can see so much going on in her eyes as well as her voice and her physicality, she’s got all the tools to carry on being a really quite brilliant actress.’

High praise indeed! And Mark is equally impressed by the other players in the mix, including Jaye and Joe, who have the difficult task of coming across as odious as possible. And they certainly achieve that!

Mark added: ‘I’m a big fan of Joe Absolom, I already liked his work before he joined us so I was thrilled when he came into the show.

‘As well as being a really nice bloke and a team player, and I think I can speak for other actors as well, it’s fascinating to watch him acting in a scene because he’s one of those actors who you want to know what the character is thinking all the time, so he’s been brilliant.

‘Jaye, who plays Celia, has been remarkable as well and obviously my mate Fred [Kettle], who plays Dylan, has been brilliant, and Zoe [Henry, who plays Rhona] has been superb.

‘The whole team has coalesced around the story cos it’s an important one. Some of the performances have been really stunning actually, really stunning – nuanced and brilliant.’

And let’s not forget Mark himself, who broke our hearts as he spent time trying to rediscover the child in his traumatised daughter.

And who left us in terror for that single minute when we thought Marlon was dead!