Casualty star Charles Venn has opened up about his art imitating

life as his character Jacob Masters gets custody of his grandchild in

a storyline about kinship carers. Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk on a break

from filming the BBC medical drama the former Strictly Come Dancing contender admitted that his own family faced a similar situation.

“It’s crazy sometimes how often art imitates life,” he began. “One of our family members had to raise their grandchild due to the fact that their son was experiencing some issues, unfortunately, psychologically.

“So as a result, she took custody of her granddaughter and her ex-partner took custody of the grandson. I looked at that and I saw sort of parallels of what’s going on in this storyline,” he intimated.

While he looks far younger than his 50 years, Charles himself is a grandfather at the moment. Reflecting on this he admitted that this had also affected how he approached the storyline.

“Just thought of my grandchildren in a situation like that. You know what I mean? What do you do in a situation whereby you understand that your children are now unfortunately unable to care for their kid who have now been abandoned and could end up in a home whilst you’re able-bodied?

“What do you do with that?” He questioned. “Leave it because it’s gonna affect and impact your life so much and change everything? Or do you kind of in a way, feel a sense of being dutifully bound and you end up sort of taking on that role?

“Because the implications of that, especially when you’ve probably washed your hands of being a father in that capacity…” He pondered.

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“The courts are supportive and you’re still a father to your kids when your children are older, but you’re going back to babies. So to see Jacob to kind of go through that…” he ruminated. Jacob’s situation is made even more complicated by the fact that he didn’t even know his son Blake existed until he was a teenager.

The character was only introduced in 2018 when he discovered he had fathered the boy with lifelong friend Elle Gardner (played by Jaye Griffiths). Therefore Jacob has never experienced parenting a baby or toddler. However, his friend and colleague Iain Dean (Michael Stevenson) has been supportive of him every step of the way so far, which is sure to make things easier.

The storyline is reflective of what is going on in the real world. Kinship care is when a child lives full-time or most of the time with a relative or close family friend, usually because their parents are not able to care for them and in the UK, there are more than 180,000 children in this situation.

This is something Charles was keenly aware of when he was first told about the plot. “And I guess in light of like you said, and in light of what your [There are] parallels of what’s happening in the real world now, in real life.

“It’s a reminder of the fact that Casualty as a show definitely touches on and highlights issues that are going on socially – there’s no doubt about that.

“That’s happening in the real world so there is somebody out there experiencing that, going through that or about to go through that.

So I definitely felt it was an honor to be given that responsibility of telling that story. Absolutely. And it’s a great story,” he promises.