Laura Ruth Sadler (25 December 1980 – 19 June 2003) was an English actress. She played pupil Judi Jeffreys in the children's school drama series Grange Hill, and nurse Sandy Harper in the BBC One hospital drama series Holby City for three years from 2000 until her death in 2003.
In 1996, she starred in the feature film Intimate Relations alongside Julie Walters, where she played a girl with a crush on her mother's adulterous lover. She joined the cast of Holby City, a spin-off series from the long-running BBC medical drama series Casualty, in the show's third series, playing the nurse Sandy Harper up until her death.
Eight further Holby City episodes featuring Sadler as Sandy had already been filmed, and were aired as scheduled posthumously. BBC scriptwriters consulted Sadler's mother, Sonja Sadler, when devising the character's exit storyline. Mal Young said: "I went there thinking we were all going to be in tears and it turned into an unofficial storyline conference. I said we would find a way of explaining Laura's absence and her mum came up with an idea we all liked." Sandy's farewell episode, "A Friend in Need", revealed that the character had won £150,000 in the lottery, and left for Australia to follow former love interest Danny Shaughnessy. After discovering various amounts of money she had left behind for her friends at Holby City Hospital, the characters gathered together in the hospital bar at the end of the episode, and raised a toast "To the one and only Sandy!"
Sadler's character Sandy Harper continued to appear in eight pre-recorded episodes of Holby City after her death. Her mother aided the show's writers in conceiving an exit storyline for the character. In the episode, which was broadcast in September 2003, Sandy was revealed to have won the lottery and subsequently emigrated to Australia.
1989 | Inspector Morse | Sabena 1 Episode | |
1989 | Magic Moments | Girl TV Film | |
1993 | The Sahara Project | Laura 4 Episodes | |
1995 | Live with the Gobbles | Gaby 4 Episodes | |
1996 | Intimate Relations | Joyce Feature film | |
1997–1999 | Grange Hill | Judi Jeffreys 30 Episodes | |
1999 | The Ruth Rendell Mysteries | Brenda 1 Episode | |
1999–2000 | Belfry Witches | Skirty Marm 13 Episodes | |
2000–2003 | Holby City | Sandy Harper 99 Episodes | |
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