Obadiah Dingle

Obadiah Dingle is Zak Dingle's cousin, the father of Charity Dingle and the widower of Kathleen Dingle. Charity described her father as a drunk but also a proud man.
Obadiah and wife Kathleen welcomed their daughter, Charity, on 9th January 1976. When Charity was young, Kathleen committed suicide, leaving a note for Obadiah before driving up to a cliff and jumping off. Obadiah had religious beliefs and wanted to protect Kathleen's memory from judgement so he lied to Charity and the rest of the family by telling them she had died of cancer. Obadiah spent every day the Summer of that year walking along the beach with Charity, searching for his wife's body but never found it. After that he began spending more time at the pub, becoming an alcoholic; he became resentful of Charity, viewing her as an inconvenience and would beat her. He had a series of girlfriends and would force Charity to call them all “Mum”.
Aged thirteen, Charity became pregnant with her second-cousin, Cain Dingle's, child. Obadiah was strict and cared what the neighbours thought so he didn't react well to the news of his thirteen-year-old daughter's pregnancy. He kept Charity from Cain by telling him Charity had run off with another boy. When Charity went into labour, Obadiah left her at the hospital to give birth alone while he went to the pub. After Charity's baby girl was born, Obadiah handed the infant over to his alcoholic friend, Pat Jones, who raised the baby as her own child.
Charity struggled with giving her baby up which soon turned to anger. Obadiah soon grew fed up with Charity so he threw her out of the house. After bouncing around relatives houses, Charity found herself homeless and turned to prostitution to survive. Charity phoned Obadiah when she was in labour with her second child but he had heard about her life of prostitution and hung up on her.
In 2016, Obadiah, who had given up alcohol and attempted to get his life back on track, sent Zak a letter to give to Charity but Zak and his then-wife Joanie Dingle decided against giving the letter to Charity, fearing it may tip her over the edge. Instead, Zak destroyed the letter, however he wrote down Obadiah's address just in case.
In September 2018, following the sentencing of her rapist DI Mark Bails, Charity decided to see Obadiah and Zak revealed to her that he had the address. Obadiah revealed that he had Parkinson's disease, to which Charity refused to show any sympathy for him. Charity was shocked when Obadiah revealed that he had lied about Kathleen's cause of death, and destroyed Charity's only happy memory of him taking her to the beach every day by revealing that he was searching for Kathleen's body, which he never found. The meeting turned sour when Obadiah blamed Charity for his drink problems as he tried to drink a bottle of whisky. She rebuffed his allegation by stating the he and all the other horrible men in her life have been using her as an excuse for their bad behaviour. Charity smashed the bottle and stormed out, ignoring Obadiah who called her name as she walked away. 
Category:Emmerdale characters
Category:Dingle family
Category:2018 minor characters