Yahoo News Claire Goose asked to be killed off in Waking The Dead
The actor revealed her character was originally meant to die in the very first episode.
Claire Goose has revealed it was her own choice to be killed off in crime drama Waking The Dead.
The former star of Casualty and The Bill played DS Mel Silver in the BBC crime drama, who made a shock exit from the show in series four when she was attacked by a murder suspect.
Goose, 48, told Saturday Kitchen's James Martin: "Actually, to be fair, I did ask that. They [the producers] were like 'Really, do we have to kill you off?' and I was like 'Yeah, go on, just do it'."
Read more: 10 Holby City stars who went on to make it big
Waking The Dead, about a cold case crime investigation unit, starred Trevor Eve, The Royle Family's Sue Johnston and Wil Johnson and ran for nine series between 2000 and 2011.
Goose's character was an integral part of the investigation team - but she revealed she was originally meant to die in the very first episode.
She said: "I said to the producers of casualty I wanted to do three years and go and I had nothing to go on to. And then I think it was maybe a couple of weeks after I'd finished, I was asked to go read for the pilot of Waking The Dead with Trevor Eve and Sue Johnston and I just thought 'oh yeah, I'll go and do that'.
"Anyway, we shot the pilot and at the end of the pilot and then I found out at the end of the pilot my character Mel was actually supposed to die and they just loved what we were all doing as a team of five of us, so they rewrote it and kept me alive - and then killed me four years later."
The 48-year-old actor rose to fame as nurse Tina Seabrook in Casualty and most recently appeared in ITV crime series The Bay.
She has two daughters with her TV producer husband Craig Woodrow.
Goose has starred in crime dramas including The Bill, Death In Paradise, New Tricks and The Coroner.
She revealed it was watching Dame Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect that inspired her to become an actor.
She said: "When you grow up somewhere quite rural you don't see things that might present themselves as possibilities to you because you haven't seen anyone else around you do that. So I wasn't really aware that you could do that as a profession.
Read more: Celebrity chef James Martin taken to A&E for stitches after injuring himself
"But I loved watching telly and then I remember watching Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect and I vividly remember turning round to my mum and going that's what I want to do. She was like 'Right, OK, well then you need to do drama', so they just found a local drama school and it just sort of went from there really."
Watch: Saturday Kitchen cooking segment goes wrong
