Casualty spoilers: Desperate Donna Jackson’s deceit and lies
Airs Saturday 29 July at 8.25pm on BBC One.
Donna Jackson desperately weaves a web of lies to protect herself after causing a devastating car crash in Casualty episode Little White Lies (BBC One, 8.25pm, Saturday, July 29, 2023 — see our TV Guide for listings)
Meanwhile, at the ED, Iain Dean is reeling after being dumped by Faith Cadogan. Rash Masum and Rida Amaan grow closer. Jan Jenning considers quitting. And Sah Brockner has some explaining to do after confessing to kissing Paige Allcott. Plus there are some special guest stars from Hollyoaks and Coronation Street!
Full Casualty spoilers below…
Donna Jackson lies to save herself
Donna Jackson makes a shock decision in this week’s Casualty!
Picking up directly from last week’s cliffhanger, when we return to Holby-land this week Donna Jackson is at the scene of the crash she caused by falling asleep at the wheel.
Now wide awake, Donna leaps into action to help mother and son Kerry and Ashley ‘Ash’ Morgan. Donna (Jaye Jacobs) approaches them full of apologies, and desperate to help.
But the clinical nurse manager soon changes her position on the crash when teenage driver Ash (Connor Curran, Two Doors Down, Dodger) reveals that passed out passenger Kerry (Keira Lucchesi, Outlander, The Nest, River City) isn’t seriously injured, just utterly stocious!
Winging it
Donna is furious when Ash and Kerry start engineering a massive payout claim on her insurance. A war of words ensues and escalates to the point where Kerry drunkenly whacks Donna in the face!
Shortly after this Sergeant Taylor turns up to take statements and Donna, in a moment of self-preservation, outright lies about the cause of the accident. She claims she was simply passing by and stopped to help. Donna then accuses Kerry and Ash of orchestrating a nasty insurance scam!
Conflicting accounts
Back at the ED Donna continues to repeat her version of events, while Ash insists he’s the one telling the truth. Unfortunately the mother and son don’t do themselves any favours with their behaviour, with Kerry faking symptoms and Ash losing his temper.
Meanwhile, Donna is firefighting on all fronts. She struggles to stick to her story and is left reeling after a phone call home reveals that her eldest daughter, Mia, has lied about being with her youngest daughter, Amber.
Donna’s hopes for a quick exit to check up on her girls, however, are dashed, as Sergeant Taylor (Torchwood and Hollyoaks star Kai Owen, who's probably best known as for his role of evil Pete Buchanan in the C4 soap) grapples with the two conflicting stories.
When the situation suddenly takes a turn for the worse — Ash is arrested and Kerry genuinely collapses — frightened Donna begins to doubt her decision to lie.
With Kerry’s life hanging in the balance and Ash facing jail, will the conflicted medic come clean?
Furious fallout after Sah’s confession
Speaking of telling the truth…
Paramedic Teddy Gowan is reeling after Sah Brockner’s secret kiss revelation!
This storyline also picks up directly after last week’s Casualty when Teddy’s best friend and fellow paramedic Sah Brockner (Arin Smethurst) confessed to kissing his girlfriend, Paige Allcott.
This week there’s a dramatic fallout between the three tight knit friends.
Teddy dumps Paige
Stunned by Sah’s revelations, Teddy (Milo Clarke) confronts Paige (Shalisha James-Davis) about her deceit at the first opportunity he gets during the busy night shift. Paige insists the encounter meant nothing, but accidentally adds fuel to the fire by revealing she told Sah not to say anything to him! At this point Teddy is beyond hurt and furiously tells Paige that their relationship is over…
The backlash continues when Paige accuses Sah of upsetting Teddy over something meaningless to ease their guilty conscience. Sah feels terrible, but is Paige being entirely truthful? She made the first move and the kiss with Sah was instantly passionate…
Meanwhile, Sah, who is about to go on leave for two weeks, is deeply unhappy. With both Teddy and Paige giving them the silent treatment, is the lonely paramedic, who’s on the waiting list for major surgery, in danger of becoming isolated when they need their friends most?
Rida and Rash become closer
In moving scenes this week, doctor Rash Masum and junior nurse Rida Amaan, open up to each other about shared difficulties and private traumas.
For the first time in a while, Casualty focuses on Rash’s relationship with his father Ashok, who was diagnosed with dementia earlier this year.
Fans will remember that the father and son were embroiled in the Holby Care Home scandal uncovered by Dylan Keogh.
Shortly afterwards, Rash (Neet Mohan) decided to move his father to a more expensive care home, even though it meant taking out a large loan.
This week we see Rash playing chess with Ashok (Kriss Dosanjh) when he gets a call from Dylan asking him to cover the night shift after a locum is a no-show.
Needing the money, Rash agrees and reluctantly leaves his dad, who doesn’t actually recognise the doctor as his son.
Meanwhile, Rida (Sarah Seggari) is still at work following the tragic events with Malik Abdallah, his wife Sufia, and their newborn son.
Desperate for some respite, Rida heads to the prayer room, only to be disturbed by a faulty, flickering lightbulb. In a bid to regain some control in what has been a horrible day, she decides to get it fixed, only to discover this is a near impossible task thanks to the bureaucracy of the busy hospital.
But Rida’s undeterred! She calls maintenance and lies that Charlie Fairhead has requested that the light be repaired, convinced the senior nurse will never find out.
Except, Charlie (Derek Thompson) knows everything and everyone, and discovers her antics! But, far from giving Rida a dressing down, he kindly offers to help her out, and also give her a hand with the paperwork in relation to the Abdullah family case.
So, feeling a bit brighter, Rida bursts into the prayer room with Charlie and the maintenance man, only to interrupt Rash during his prayers.
Mortified, Rida later seeks Rash out to apologise, and the pair end up opening up to each other about their faith, families and working in the ED, in some lovely scenes that deepen the dimensions of these two endearing characters.
Also in Casualty this week
Iain Dean (Michael Stevenson) is flabbergasted after Faith Cadogan’s (Kirsty Mitchell) brutal dumping and barely making it through the shift. Confused, he reveals to Faith’s buddy Stevie Nash that their relationship is over in no uncertain terms.
Stevie is shocked, but will Iain reveal Faith is a drug addict?
Stevie also becomes unwittingly involved in Donna’s web of lies when she overhears Ash insisting to Sergeant Taylor that the nurse was driving on the wrong side of the road…
Elsewhere, after a scary shout out, Jan Jenning considers retiring!
It’s a busy evening for the veteran paramedic and her nephew sidekick, Teddy, in this week’s Casualty. Their first patient of the evening is Scott Baker, who has stopped taking his medication and dangerously hurt himself. Not only does Jan earn Scott’s trust (returning guest star Lucas Button, who played Scott in Casualty episode Thin Green Line) she also impresses Teddy with her expertise in a delicate and urgent situation.
Later, however, they face a prank call-out that leaves Jan shaken… While Teddy searches for their potential patient, Jan is threatened and attacked by a mob, determined to rob the ambulance.
After work, Jan sits down with wife Ffion Morgan (Stirling Gallacher) and the pair seriously discuss retirement.
Could this be the end of an era?
Meanwhile, Ryan Firth (Eddie-Joe Robinson) attempts to reconcile with co-worker Cam Micklethwaite (Barney Walsh), who’s giving him the cold shoulder. Cam, however, is not having any of it.
After Ryan’s insincere apology falls flat, the trainee nurse decides to try another approach. While treating dog-lover patient Sam Berridge (Mark Lewis, The Crown, Ted Lasso) the cocky nurse comes up with what he thinks is the paw-fect way to make amends. But is he barking up the wrong tree — again?
Meanwhile, Cam’s crush on fellow nurse Jodie Whyte (Anna Chell) remains unabated and unrequited. Jodie does open up to Cam about how things are going with her father Max Cristie (Nigel Harman) but it’s clear he’s firmly in the friendzone…
There’s also a funny and touching guest appearance by Amy Robbins this week!
Amy is best known for her roles as Dr Jill Witherill in The Royal, Lynette Drinkwell in Hollyoaks, Caren who had a brief relationship with Karen Taylor in EastEnders, Defence Barrister Milligan in Emmerdale and Daisy Midgley’s mum Christina Boyd in Coronation Street. Long-time Casualty fans will also remember that Amy played Sergeant Rachel James in the medical drama for eight episodes in 2011, as well reappearing in guest roles in 2014 and 2017.
Amy Robbins reveals the Coronation Street roles she was TURNED DOWN for
Amy Robbin's first episode as Christine in Corrie
This week Amy is back on the wards, as new patient Ella Pollard. Ella has dislocated her shoulder and needs an urgent x-ray but is determined to stop Cam from cutting her expensive jumpsuit - even if that means assaulting him!
Donna intervenes and offers to carefully unstitch the outfit, while Ella opens up to the nurse manager about the lengths she’s gone to that evening to impress a former friend and an old flame at a school reunion.
And finally, there’s a twist in Donna’s already twisty-turny new storyline when her daughters Mia and Amber turn up unexpectedly at the ED…
Casualty episode Little White Lies airs on Saturday, July 29 2023 at 8.25 pm on BBC One. It will be available on BBC iPlayer after transmission.
Casualty's Summer 2023 trailer has BIG reveals about Donna's future
Never miss an episode of Casualty with our handy guide to every episode in 2023
Get the What to Watch Newsletter
The latest updates, reviews and unmissable series to watch and more!
With twenty years of experience as an entertainment journalist, Elaine writes for What’s on TV, TV Times, TV & Satellite Week and www.whattowatch.com covering a variety of programs from gardening and wildlife to documentaries and drama.
As well as active involvement in the WTW family’s social media accounts, she has been known to get chatty on the red carpet and wander into the odd podcast.
After a day of previewing TV, writing about TV and interviewing TV stars, Elaine likes nothing than to relax… by watching TV.