Every evil act Emmerdale’s Celia and Ray have committed in horrific storyline

Every evil act Emmerdale’s Celia and Ray have committed in horrific storyline Joshua Halm Published November 21, 2025 3:35pm Updated November 21, 2025 3:35pm Share this article via whatsappShare this article via xCopy the link to this article.Link is copiedShare this article via facebook Comment now Comments Your guide to the pure evil that is Celia Daniels and her son, Ray Walters (Picture: ITV)

Emmerdale has had its share of dark and sinister villains in its 53 year history. Characters with a seriously skewed moral compass’ that display extreme ruthlessness, cruelty and violence.

From serial killers including crazed Cameron Murray (Dominic Power), delightfully camp but utterly unhinged Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu), to sexual predators like paedophile Maya Stepney (Louisa Clein) and rapist Pierce Harris (Jonathan Wrather).

Corrupt monsters like DI Mark Malone (Mark Womack), twisted teens like Lachlan White (Thomas Atkinson) and even manipulative schemers who went on to win fans hearts while retaining their ‘baddie’ ethos, like devious antihero Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins) and the ice Queen herself, Kim Tate (Claire King).

Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths) and her son/right hand man Ray Walters (Joe Absolom) have quickly ascended the ranks of evil, joining the above-named esteem villains as two of the most wicked characters to ever permeate the village with their hideousness.

Ray and Celia seemed to only target teens, at first… (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

You see, Celia and Ray aren’t just evil for the sake of it, they’re evil because it pays. Celia is the mastermind behind an enormous crime ring, one that predates on and exploits the most vulnerable in society: children, adults with disabilities and trafficked humans and uses them as slaves, drug runners and sex workers.

Celia and Ray are neck deep in perhaps the darkest and most uncomfortable corners of the organised crime game and while the much maligned ‘soap gangster’ has long been rejected by soap fans, the duo have created fleshed-out, three dimensional organised criminals who’s dark acts never feel cartoonish and low-stakes and have real consequences for the villagers we’ve grown to love.

Though we know we don’t have Celia forever, star Jaye has promised there’s plenty more to come before her evil alter-ego is delivered a comeuppance that the soap Gods demand, and as the tendrils of her dark operation continue to wrap around her victims, we thought we’d give a definitive timeline of the syndicates villainy.

Fans loved feisty Celia initially…

Fans initially loved Celia (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

There was initially no reason to believe that Celia and Ray were linked. They arrived separately, with Celia appearing as a farmer who wanted to rent two of Moira Dingle’s (Natalie J Robb) fields.

Moira scoffed at her lowball offer, despite Celia’s very real reasoning that she needed the money. The two seemed to established a friendship regardless of the failed business proposition, though early hints as to Celia’s true nature were revealed in a clash with Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt).

‘Oh I’m loving Celia,’ one fan wrote on X/Twitter, while another added: ‘I like Celia it’s been a while since we’ve had a strong female villain, I look forward to seeing more of her.’

A third mused: ‘Welcome Celia looks like she’s going to be causing a bit of trouble as well as being feisty,’ a third said, adding: ‘I think she’s going to be a good character addition and I like her already’ while another shared: ‘After seeing Celia tonight, can already tell that Jaye Griffiths is going to be a great addition. can’t wait to see what’s coming up. have a feeling she is someone not to be messed with.’

Jaye Griffiths said: ‘Oh, the worst is yet to come, by far! This is only the beginning. Oh goodness me, yes, there is more to come,’ teasing the eventual reveal.

Celia formed a friendship with Moira (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

Although initially revealed to be in cahoots with Joe Tate (Ned Porteous) on a plot to take Moira’s farm for Kim, Celia soon switched her allegiance.

Admitting all to Moira, she proposed an alliance between the two to get revenge against the Tate dynasty and destroy them forever.

Moira’s appetite for revenge proved stronger than her anger over the betrayal, and she and Celia went into business together.

Ray grooms Dylan and April into selling drugs

Ray appeared just as Bear vanished (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

Off-screen, Ray had set to work grooming Dylan, the boy April befriended while living on the streets. Finding him in a hostel, desperate and penniless, Ray acted as a father figure to Dylan while employing him to do criminal jobs, seducing him into the crime ring.

When Dylan returned to Emmerdale, Ray wasn’t far behind and immediately entangled him in another drug plot. When Ray discovered the burgeoning relationship between Dylan and April Windsor (Amelia Flanagan), though, he began to pay attention to her, clearly seeing her as a useful asset.

Ray’s appearance coincided with the disappearance of Bear Wolf (Joshua Richards), but more on that later…

On his initial plots, Joe said: ‘You don’t really see Ray being evil, you just see him kind of manipulate things so it’s a fine line between playing an evil kind of guy and playing someone pretending to be evil. You don’t want to be like a pantomime villain, like, winking at the camera.

‘But at the same time it’s got to be obvious what’s happening. I think that’s why those parts are always fun, because there’s a lot more you can do with it in terms of where you can push it, and where you can be genuinely, like feigning care for Dylan or April.’

Ray had April and Dylan firmly ensconced in his drug ring (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

Ray later fully ensnared April when she took on one of Dylan’s drug runs. During the drop, she was threatened by a knife-wielding stranger, who demanded she hand over the drugs. Terrified, she complied and upon returning to Ray, she sheepishly admitted what’d happened.

Ray told April that this had created a debt, one that she and Dylan could work off by taking further drug dealing jobs. This all proved to be another machination, however, when it was revealed that Ray had organised the mugging to trap the teens further.

With no apparent way out, April became a full time dealer, and despite Dylan’s pleas to Ray to release her from the operation, his care for his ‘saviour’ won out when Ray told him that he’d be killed by the ‘big bosses’ if he set her free.

When a rush to complete a drug run led to April dropping some ecstasy tablets that her younger brother Leo Goskirk (Harvey Rogerson) ate, April could take no more and determined to tell the police everything.

Celia is unmasked as drug operation’s ringleader and gets violent

Celia revealed herself as the top dog (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

With Ray in a panic, he calls his boss, who manages to intercept April. Celia feigns kindness at first before her sheer fury explodes and she smacks April across the face.

Seething, Celia chastises April, before making it incredibly clear that one word to the police will result in her painful death. Upon the reveal, Jaye said: ‘It’s her domain. She has overseers who do the actual work and she just runs everything. Everyone assumes it’s Ray. Good-looking white bloke, everyone assumes he’s the boss, but actually he is a child compared to Celia.’

Thinking of crossing Celia? Think again!: ‘Write a will! She does not like or accept failure. Mistakes are something she has very little patience or tolerance for.’

We also discovered that Celia is, in fact, Ray’s adoptive mother, adding a further twisted dynamic to crime syndicate.

Prostitution and human trafficking

Celia forces April into prostitution… (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV) …while Anya, a slave she’s trafficked tries to escape (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

As April fell deeper into their dark web, Celia decided there was further use for her than as a simple drug mule. When Ray sent her on a drug drop, it became clear to April that the client was expecting more than his package of cocaine and as his behaviour became more intimidating, she bolted. Horrified and hopeless, Dylan and April plotted an escape, though Ray soon halted their plans with a chilling threat against Leo.

Meanwhile, and again, seemingly in an unrelated twist, Caleb (William Ash) and Ruby Miligan (Beth Cordingly) discovered Anya (Alia Al-Shabibi) in the back of a depot truck and took her in, with absolutely no idea how she’d found herself there. Though they tried to take care of her, she disappeared days later.

With Celia’s warnings of what would happen if she ‘disappoints’ another client ringing in her ears, April was sent on another prostitution job. The punter, though initially presenting as calm, soon became violent, and as he forced himself on April, she struck him with a vodka bottle, seemingly killing him.

April considered asking her dad for help (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

With nowhere else to turn, she called her bosses, who immediately undertook a clean up operation, with Ray ordered to removal the ‘corpse’, while Celia made it clear that her help came at a price, and when April again threatened to go to the police, Celia threatened everybody she loves with a painful death before explaining that she now owned April.

Though April longed to tell her dad, Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) about the abuse she’d been enduring, the thought of Ray shooting her beloved dad dead forced her to remain silent.

Anya later reappeared in Ray’s car boot as he transported her back to Celia’s farm. She’d hidden in Caleb’s depot after being trafficked into England by them and as they returned her to where they’d previously imprisoned her as a slave, a further reveal came when she was jostled into a room with Bear.

Can’t wait for the next twist?

Hi, I’m Calli Kitson, Soaps reporter at Metro. I cover Emmerdale, EastEnders, Corrie and more.

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Anya found herself back in Celia’s grasp (Picture: Metro/ITV) Bear swears to look after Anya (Picture: Mark Bruce/ITV)

See, Ray’s emergence and Bear’s vanishing happening at the same time was not a coincidence, as Ray had inducted a vulnerable Bear into Celia’s slavery ring, keeping him at the barn.

On the twist, Joshua Richards explained how his alter-ego came to be entwined in the hideous exploit, and how Ray manipulated him: ‘It’s pointing out sometimes that your previous life was absolutely dreadful and aren’t things better now because you can trust me and I’ll look after you. It’s like giving a dog treats.

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‘It’s very clever manipulation and very insidious, that you can bit by bit instil in somebody that you’re needed by the for their very existence. Ray is very successful at doing that because he has a natural charm and he has an ability to get under people’s skin.’

With Anya wounded and rapidly becoming more unwell, a fire is lit inside Bear to protect her, begging Ray to take her to the hospital.

Bear was desperate to save Anya (Picture: ITV)

Ray declined, but promised to provide some antibiotics, though this all fell to the wayside when Kim announced an inspection of the fields the barn is located on, forcing the slaves to be hidden.

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Though Ray eventually brought Anya the drugs she needed, he was met with a grave Bear, who told him that it was all too late. In a truly horrifying twist, Anya had succumb to her infection and died.

Arrow MORE: Emmerdale’s Celia star Jaye Griffiths opens up about horrific abuse ordeal

Arrow MORE: The great escape! Bear risks everything to get away from Celia in Emmerdale

Arrow MORE: 7 police dramas better than Line of Duty including one hailed a ‘masterpiece’

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