Emilia Fox and David Caves have opened up about the new adventures their characters will be embarking on in series 27 of the long-standing BBC show.

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Silent Witness will be returning to screens on January 8, and fans of the show will be elated to know that Emilia and David’s characters, Nikki Alexander and Jack Hodgson, will be taking on “parental roles” to other characters on the show. 

In a sit down with Hello! Magazine and other media outlets, the pair admitted that the couple would become parental figures to trainee Jack’s niece Cara Connolly, played by Rhiannon Jones, and anatomical pathologist Velvy Schur, played by Alastair Michael.

Emilia explained: “With Velvy and Cara, [Jack’s] taking on a new paternal role and Nikki, who doesn’t have children but becomes this go-to person, which you do in a partnership, you test things out. It’s a real trust with each other.

“I think because they are together now, we’ve been trying to work out how to have them in a relationship and have them working together.

“We didn’t want to have a break-up, conflict thing.”

David added: “They both take on those parental roles, which is really great and makes sense, but it’s not done in a heavy-handed way.”

For years, the TV couple teased show fans with their “will they, won’t they romance’, and when they finally got together in season 24, fans were over the moon.

Season 27 of the hit forensic show returns to BBC One next month with 10 episodes.

Nikki, Jack and the rest of the Lyell crime team will be tackling disturbing new cases across a two-part mystery.

The official series description reads: “Nikki and Jack investigate a murder bearing all the hallmarks of a notorious serial killer. 

“When Nikki meets Charles Beck, the pathologist who conducted the original post-mortems, she discovers his wife was the suspected fifth victim of the serial killer.

“But nobody believes him when he claims he knows where to find her body.”

Silent Witness returns to BBC One on January 8.

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