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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Entertainment
Anna Highfield & Katie Fitzpatrick

The real life story of Emmerdale's Paddy, his Corrie star wife and their son's hospital ordeal

Emmerdale's Dominic Brunt is best known to viewers as loveable vet Paddy Kirk.

In the ITV show Paddy has wed four times, but in real-life he's been married to wife Joanne Mitchell since 2003.

And Victoria will be a familiar face to soap fans, reports My London.

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Joanne, 50, has starred alongside Dominic in Emmerdale, and she had four roles in the Yorkshire soap.

Emmerdale's Dominic Brunt and actress wife Joanne Mitchell (Joanne Mitchell Instagram)

She played DC Barnborough in 2003, a midwife in 2006, Susan Davies in 2009 and most recently Sandra Flaherty in 2016, the mother of Liv Flaherty and step mum of Aaron Dingle.

Joanne has also appeared in Doctors, Bad Girls, Holby City, Casualty, Heartbeat, A Touch of Frost and the Rochdale-based school drama Waterloo Road.

And she has starred in Coronation Street.

Joanne as Sandra Flaherty in Emmerdale (ITV)

Joanne played Marsha the mother of Kayla Clifton, played by Mollie Winnard, and the ex-wife of twisted policeman Neil Clifton, played by Ben Cartwright, as part of the harrowing Bethany Platt grooming storyline.

Dominic, 51, met Joanne The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and 2011 together they co-founded Mitchell Brunt Films.

The couple married in 2003 and they have two children.

Over a decade ago the couple were terrified they were going to lose their son Danny when he needed urgent heart by-pass surgery after being diagnosed with a heart condition at eight months old.

Dominic told the Mirror in 2018, when his son was nine: “At the time it was horrific. You’re in the eye of the storm, it was horrible. You think you are going to lose your son.

“We had only just got to know him – he was eight months old, and we thought that was it.

"We discussed organ donation. It was brought up by a nurse because there was a mortality rate with the ­operation.

"We had to discuss it, but even before that we’d all agreed to be donors in the family – my sisters are nurses so it was how we were brought up.”

Thankfully Danny pulled through and he appeared with his dad on ITV's Big Star's Little Star.

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