Fraud
In late 2007, Viv becomes involved with Freddie Yorke in a children's charity known as the Happy Smile Fund. Early the following year, Bob and Viv discover that the money raised for the charity is missing. They are soon arrested for fraud and everything they do seems to strengthen the case against them. Distressed at the prospect of a prison sentence, losing their money and their reputation being destroyed, Bob is further devastated to learn that Freddie and Viv had kissed once. Bob forgives Viv, and they consider running away with the twins, but Jamie convinces them to stay and face the consequences.
In August 2008, Donna is nearly killed while in a high-speed car chase with Freddie. Viv cannot deal with the pain her actions have caused her family, and pleads guilty to the charges against her. Despite being innocent, she confesses and claims Bob knew nothing of her crimes. She is sentenced to three years in prison and Bob is devastated, even more so when she refuses to allow him to visit her and returns photos of the children.
Bob tries to run the cafe and post office as well as work shifts in the Woolpack and raise the twins on his own. Jamie is concerned that Bob was going to run away again and Bob is hurt by his son's lack of trust. Even more distress is caused when John McNally, a local reporter for the Hotten Courier, writes a story implicating Bob for fraud. Nicola De Souza leads the villagers in threatening to sue Bob for the charity money. Bob finally snaps and demands to see the editor of the Courier, and when his permission is refused, he hijacks a cherrypicker outside the building and maneouvres it as close to the top of the building as possible, in order to warn people of the evils of the Courier. He begin to suffer an anxiety attack and is brought to safety by the police and arrested but the charges against him are dropped. The villagers also drop their lawsuit plans.
Read more about this topic: Bob Hope (Emmerdale)
Famous quotes containing the word fraud:
“He saw, he wish’d, and to the prize aspir’d.
Resolv’d to win, he meditates the way,
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray;
For when success a lover’s toil attends,
Few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)