Former Emmerdale star Emile John appeared in the most recent episode of Casualty – and viewers were surprised by his appearance as he looked very different from the character he portrayed in the Dales.

Emile appeared in Emmerdale for 255 episodes between 2021 and 2024 as Ethan Anderson.

The son of vicar Charles Anderson (Kevin Mathurin), Ethan was a lawyer who was involved in some controversial cases, including defending a man who violently attacked Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle) in a racist attack.

When Ethan realised he couldn’t represent the man because of his vile views he ended up being beaten up himself.

The character tragically died of a brain aneurysm as he was awaiting a probable person sentence for a driving offence after driving his friend Nicky Miligan (Lewis Cope) to rescue his partner from some men who’d previously attacked him.

When he lost control of the car and crashed, Nicky was seriously hurt. Ethan fled the scene, worried about his career as a lawyer.

When Ruby Miligan (Beth Cordingly) found out that Ethan had abandoned her son, she ran him over in a revenge attack on the day of the village fete. When Ethan subsequently collapsed at home and died, Ruby was worried that she’d been the cause of his death but eventually that turned out not to be the case.

As a lawyer, Ethan’s look in Emmerdale was professional, with his wardrobe mainly consisting of smart suits.

So his appearance on Casualty came as a surprise. His character, Jay Buswell, sported bleached hair, a chunky earring and other jewellery and a casual T shirt.

Jay was admitted to the ED with symptoms that seemed to come from steroid abuse, but eventually he disclosed to Dr Rash Masum (Neet Mohan) that he suffered from Crohn’s disease and had taken a large dose of his prescribed medication to try to get through a date with a woman he wanted to impress without having symptoms.

In true Casualty style, the staff managed to fix him up physically as well as helping him to sort out his relationship issues, with Jay looking forward to another date with the woman after he was honest with her about his condition.

Emile isn’t the only former soap star to have made an appearance in Casualty recently.