Who was Joe Tate in Emmerdale?

The son of Chris Tate and Rachel Hughes, Joe Tate in Emmerdale was orphaned at a young age. Guardianship was granted to his aunt, Zoe...
Carena Crawford
By Carena Crawford

The son of Chris Tate and Rachel Hughes, Joe Tate in Emmerdale was orphaned at a young age. Guardianship was granted to his aunt, Zoe Tate.

Zoe, Joe and his cousin Jean then moved to New Zealand, where he lived for 12 years.

Joe Tate returns to Emmerdale in 2017

Joe returned to Emmerdale in 2017 with revenge in mind – he wanted to get back at Charity Dingle for driving his father to suicide. In fact, Chris had a terminal brain tumour, so took his own life and framed Charity for his murder. The truth came out many months after Charity had served time in prison.

On his return, Joe posed as Tom Waterhouse. He targeted Charity’s daughter Debbie Dingle and started a relationship with her. But then dumped her and evicted her from her house, leaving her and her kids homeless. However he later realised he had fallen for Debbie and the two began a relationship for real.

But on their wedding day, Joe didn’t turn up. He had been ‘taken care of’ by Graham Foster after Kim insisted he got rid of Joe.

Joe alive!

It was Cain Dingle who thought he had killed Joe after knocking him down with one punch. Graham moved the body for Cain and let him believe Joe was dead. But actually viewers had seen Joe’s hand twitch and knew he had been alive.

Although it was unclear whether Graham had killed him, Joe was later revealed to be alive and living abroad.