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"EastEnders star David Witts has said that his character Joey Branning will find life &amp;quot;really hard&amp;quot; after he is forced to dump his cousin Lauren. The pair have recently fallen for each other, but Joey calls the romance off next week after being blackmailed by his interfering dad Derek (Jamie Foreman).   After a drunken Lauren causes a huge car accident while running away with Joey in upcoming episodes, Derek suggests that the only way she can avoid a prison sentence is by claiming that sober Joey was the driver.  Joey goes along with the deception to help Lauren (Jacqueline Jossa), but is horrified when Derek later threatens to tell the police the truth unless he gets his own way. Witts told Soaplife: &amp;quot;Joey must either move in with Derek and be a respectful and loving son, or dump Lauren. If Joey takes either of those options, Derek won&amp;#039;t tell the police that Lauren was driving the car. &amp;quot;Joey&amp;#039;s love for Lauren is massive, but not quite as massive as his hatred for Derek. He decides to become the villain and lie that he never loved her. He&amp;#039;ll take the flack because that will make it easier for her to move on without him.&amp;quot; He continued: &amp;quot;It will be really hard as he has to keep making out to Lauren that he&amp;#039;s not interested. She keeps trying to contact him but he doesn&amp;#039;t return her calls.&amp;quot;   Witts insisted that Joey would be making a mistake if he told Lauren the truth about Derek&amp;#039;s blackmail. He explained: &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s very headstrong and she&amp;#039;d say that she doesn&amp;#039;t care about getting into trouble with the law. It would all end in tears. Everyone would find out as Lauren&amp;#039;s the sort of person who&amp;#039;d blurt everything out, and it would cause even more of a mess. Joey very much thinks he&amp;#039;s doing the right thing.&amp;quot; EastEnders continues tomorrow (November 22) at 7.30pm on BBC One. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/eastenders/news/a439869/eastenders-david-witts-its-hard-for-joey-to-dump-lauren/>