Emmerdale star Joshua Richards has called for his character Bear Wolf to form a new friendship now that his horrendous ordeal at the hands of Ray Walters has ended with him found not guilty of murder and released from prison.

Last week’s episodes also saw Bear offered a job working at Caleb Miligan’s depot, which he starts next week, so things are really on the up for him.

But Richards thinks that Bear needs even more positivity in his life now, specifically in the form of a friendship with Louise Jameson’s character Mary Goskirk.

“Even though he’s living in the house with Mandy [Dingle], Paddy [Kirk] and Dylan [Penders], I think he’s lonely and I think he needs somebody maybe of his own age to share and talk about things,” the actor told Inside Soap‘s Soap Scoop podcast

“And I did go to Louise Jameson’s birthday party the other night and I did say to her, ‘Let’s have a word, maybe you and me could have a really lovely friendship again’, because they’ve both been exploited – she had that awful lady who exploited her.”

Richards also has plenty of ideas of what he’d like Bear and Mary to get up to.

“They could go to the wrestling! Or maybe she could go to an event, like a protest about something, and maybe Bear sees her show her courage,” he said.

“She has a great deal of courage to take things on and make a strong point and issue, even though she spent many years in a marriage that she wasn’t happy in and couldn’t be her true self. But I think maybe Bear could also learn from her ability to say, no, we’ll take this on. Don’t be cowed by this.”

The two actors also have a friendship off-screen, with Richards explaining that they used to share an agent and performed together on Words and Music for BBC Radio 3.