Charity Dingle
fictional character from the ITV soap opera Emmerdale

Charity Dingle (also Tate, Sharma and Macey) is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Emmerdale, played by Emma Atkins. Suranne Jones originally auditioned for the role of Charity prior to Atkins being cast in the role. The actress began filming her first scenes in February 2000, and she made her first screen appearance as Charity during the episode broadcast on 30 March 2000. Actress Mica Proctor played a young Charity in a flashback episode about the character's past, which aired on 29 May 2018.
The character has been involved in numerous high-profile storylines during her time on the show, such as her marriage to Chris Tate (Peter Amory), an affair with Chris's sister, Zoe Tate (Leah Bracknell), the arrival of her long-lost daughter Debbie Dingle (Charley Webb), her affair with Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley), being framed by Chris for his death, giving birth to Noah Tate (Jack Downham) and her relationship with Tom King (Ken Farrington), which led to her temporary exit on 1 March 2005. Atkins returned to the role on 1 October 2009. During her second stint in Emmerdale, Charity's storylines focused on her relationship with Cain, their get-rich-quick schemes, and her job working with Jai Sharma (Chris Bisson), whom she later married and divorced.
Charity later married Declan Macey (Jason Merrells) and had a secret abortion, which led Declan to try to kill her. Atkins took maternity leave in February 2015, as Charity was sentenced to prison after confessing to her crimes. Atkins returned briefly from June to July, and again in December that year, before making a permanent return in March 2016.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5074529. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000, 2018, 2005 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charity Dingle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.