Former EastEnders star Hannah Waterman has joined a rival soap, 20 years after leaving Albert Square.

The actress played Laura Dunn in EastEnders, Ian Beale’s third wife, from 2000 until she was killed off in 2004. 

And after packing up and moving to Australia, Hannah is now reportedly set to play a magistrate in Home and Away – with the scenes to air in the UK next month.

Hannah last took on an acting role in the UK in 2013 before she moved to Australia, where she later married The Bill star Huw Higginston. 

A source told The Sun: ‘Hannah moved to Australia years ago for a new life but she’s still acting.

Former EastEnders star Hannah Waterman has joined a rival soap, 20 years after leaving Albert Square

The actress played Laura Dunn in EastEnders, Ian Beale’s third wife, from 2000 until she was killed off in 2004

‘She loved dipping her toes back into the world of soap briefly and who knows it could mean she finds her way back more permanently.’

The new role comes two years after Hannah married The Bill star Huw Higginson in Australia – five months after her famous father Dennis died.

Huw took to X, formerly Twitter, to reveal the happy news, writing: ‘Got married to my love yesterday. We had the best of days.’ 

He shared a picture of Hannah, who wore a blue patterned dress for the ceremony, as they posed on a boat in Sydney harbor with their son Jack. 

Hannah was seen gazing happily at her new husband as they sit on the back of the boat, with her wedding bouquet in her lap.

Huw looked dapper in a navy suit, while their son dressed in a black suit. Another pH๏τo shared by the groom shows the couple surrounded by family and friends.

Hannah’s father died at the age of 74 in May. At the time Hannah shared a picture of the legendary TV star smiling while cradling her as a baby as in his arms.

The actress, whose mother Patricia Maynard was left by her father for Rula Lenska after ten years of marriage in 1987, said: ‘My Dad! I loved him’.

After packing up and moving to Australia, Hannah is now set to play a magistrate in Home and Away – with the scenes to air in the UK next month (Pictured in EastEnders in 2002)

The new role comes two years after Hannah married The Bill star Huw Higginson in Australia – five months after her famous father Dennis died

Huw took to X, formerly Twitter , to reveal the happy news, writing: ‘Got married to my love yesterday. We had the best of days’

Dennis was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer less than three months before his death, after a tumour was discovered in a bone in his leg. 

Hannah acrimoniously split from her EastEnders co-star husband Ricky Groves in 2009, after he said the actress revealed she had been having an affair with Huw and was leaving on New Year’s Eve.

Hannah and Huw have been dating since 2010, after a long friendship of over 10 years, with the star revealing in a 2011 interview they became close again in 2009 when they were cast opposite each other in two plays. 

Hannah, who had dramatically lost two-and-a-half stone as part of a fitness regime which featured in a DVD, was still married at the time to Ricky, who blamed her exercise DVD for the break-up.

She made no secret of her admiration for him, saying: ‘Huw is lovely in real life. When there’s only two of you (on stage), you have to absolutely trust each other … he is a rock.’

She left Ricky on New Year’s Eve 2009, before Huw moved into her EsSєx home in June 2010 after having issues in his own marriage to Geraldine Dove-Higginson, with whom he shares a daughter.

Hannah acrimoniously split from her EastEnders co-star husband Ricky Groves in 2009

Huw married Geraldine, a stage manager and former art director on The Bill, in 1997.

‘I’ve been friends with Huw on and off for 10 years. We first met when he played my pervy landlord in EastEnders, but since then we’ve been in two plays together,’ Hannah recalled of their relationship in a 2011 interview.

‘Last year, Huw came a bit unstuck in his personal life and I was on tour with Calendar Girls, so he stayed at my house for a while. He moved in in June, and things progressed quite quickly from there! 

‘We’ve kept things quiet because we’re both quite private people. We wanted to give our relationship time to grow away from the public eye. We spoke early on in our relationship about the fact we’d like a family.’

Huw, who played lovable but dimwitted police officer George Garfield in The Bill, co-starred alongside Waterman in plays Rattle Of A Single Man and Killing Time in 2009.