EXCLUSIVE Casualty star Amanda Mealing is handed a career lifeline after her cocaine-fuelled car crash left a nurse with life-changing injuries

Daily Mail​

17-05-2025

Casualty star Amanda Mealing has been offered a lifeline back on to television screens following her cocaine-fuelled car crash that left a male nurse unconscious.
The actress, 57, flew out to Malta earlier this month to film a special episode of Channel 5 drama Good Ship Murder alongside its stars Catherine Tyldesley, Shayne Ward and Ross Adams.
The guest role comes after she admitted driving with cocaine in her system and driving without due care and attention following the crash close to her home in Deeping St Nicholas, Lincolnshire, in January 2024.
During the court hearing in March of this year, her solicitor revealed how she'd turned to cocaine while going through a divorce from film producer Richard Sainsbury, and dealing with the traumatic deaths of her father, her best friend and her dog.
It was also revealed that since the crash, she had been diagnosed with blood cancer following a breast cancer battle decades earlier.
She had taken the Class A drug the night before the smash and was driving home when her car drifted across the road and hit an oncoming Skoda driven by nurse Mark Le Sage, who was seriously injured and had to change his career as a result.
Amanda - who played Connie Beauchamp on Casualty - was banned from driving for 28 months, reduced to 22 months as she had already served a six-month interim ban.
She was also fined £485, and ordered to pay £400 costs and a surcharge of £194. She offered to pay at a rate of £100 a month, which was accepted by the court.
A TV insider told MailOnline: 'Amanda is a phenomenal actress and has made many friends within the industry.
'Everyone has been rallying around her. She admitted what she did and opened up about what was going on in her life at the time.
'She is not a bad person and has been through a lot. She was already in talks about appearing on the murder mystery drama before the court case.
'And once it was all over, the little guest role gave her the life-line she very much needed.
Good Ship Murder has become a huge hit for Channel 5 and features different guest stars each week.
The third series is currently being filmed and will hit our TV screens next year.
It will also include guest appearances from Birds of a Feather legends Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph.
Since leaving Casualty in 2021, Amanda has been moving from acting into directing, including for an episode of the BBC TV series Waterloo Road.
In 2002, Amanda was diagnosed with breast cancer, just 24 hours after giving birth to her second son, Otis. Her older son, Milo, was three at the time.
She had been aware of a small lump in her breast when pregnant, but ignored it.
She said: 'I definitely thought it could have been mastitis. But a large part of it was that ridiculous thing where I thought, 'If I don't go to the GP, they can't tell me it's breast cancer and therefore I can pretend it's no'. But if I'd done something about it at the time, I may not have had to endure what I did. It's ridiculous. I played with my life. I gambled.
'It must have been three months. And it went from being a pea-sized lump to a mass. It was huge.
'I remember seeing the mass when I had my ultrasound and I knew. It was like the air just went out of me. I got very angry at the cancer. I thought, 'How dare you do this to me when my newborn baby is just hours old? I won't let it happen'.'
She had a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Five years after she had completed her treatment she was diagnosed with PTSD.
Her sister in law and a close friend, both diagnosed with breast cancer at around the same time, did not survive.
Amanda has undergone therapy to cope with survivor's guilt, which led to panic attacks and depression.