Aaron has married John, but remains oblivious to John’s deadly deeds, all born out of a twisted saviour complex.
With Robert having been suspicious of John ever since their first meeting, John’s downfall can’t come soon enough.
But, speaking to RadioTimes.com and other media, Hawley explained how his character’s one man mission to expose John has left Robert at rock bottom, as John engineered an angry outburst from a stressed Robert to upset nephew Harry (Adam Pryor).
“Robert loses his temper, and John walks in on it and uses it as a thing to gaslight Robert, to make it look like he’s been aggressive.
“And a lot of the things he’s been doing, he says that they’re all part of him being dangerous and not safe around kids and around Victoria. So he adds all that together and he uses it to paint a picture to basically get rid of Robert,” said the actor.
With their sister Victoria (Isabel Hodgins) telling Robert he’s on his final warning, John gleefully rubs salt in his wounds.
“He visits and rubs it in his face, because [Robert’s] at a real low point at this moment.”
Asked if Robert knows, as the viewers do, that John is guilty of killing Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter), Hawley confirms: “He does, yeah. The whole time he’s been onto John, he’s got evidence as well.”
In July, Robert put two and two together and correctly worked out that the confession to Nate’s murder, found in the name of the late Owen Michaels (Simon Haines), had been staged by John.
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“The last person to see Owen alive was John,” he recalled. “So he knows, he knows.
“And with everything else as well, all of the hero attempts, it’s always John that’s in the right place at the right time, and he suspects that that’s not just coincidence, that there’s something sinister about it. He’s onto him.”
Unfortunately for Robert, he’s been blocked at every turn while trying to reveal John’s true colours; and things between Robert and John recently reached new heights when Robert hit out after John went on the attack.
“But then with the incident where Robert lashes out and hits him with the wrench, John has footage of that to use against Robert,” Hawley told RadioTimes.com and other press.
Although no blackmail threat has, as yet, been made, we know that John secretly has the upper hand.
“So it’s basically a trump card, any time he wants he can just go to the police with this footage of Robert hitting him in the head with a wrench and that’s it, Robert goes back to prison.”
It’s no wonder Robert buckles under the weight of recent events and suffers a breakdown.
But we’re eagerly anticipating the moment the scales fall from the eyes of every villager who’s been singing John’s praises.
When Aaron finds out what John has been hiding, we wouldn’t put it past John to take desperate action against him.
If necessary, does Hawley believe that Robert would kill John to protect Aaron?
“Yeah, I think he could,” he mused.
“He’s killed people before, but it was always kind of as an accident. The motive wasn’t to kill the person, it was out of defence or anger, and then the consequence was that they died, with both Lee and Katie.
“So, could he? Yeah, but I don’t think he wants to.”
