Kerrie Hayes is currently starring as lawyer Faith in the BBC drama Silent Witness but eagle-eyed fans will remember her from a previous BBC series that starred Stephen Graham
The popular crime drama Silent Witness is back on our screens for its 28th series, featuring actress Kerrie Hayes in a role that’s a far cry from her best-known part in the 2012 BBC drama Good Cop. The Liverpool-born actress, who sports long blonde locks as lawyer Faith in the two-part episode titled Broken, looks dramatically different from her previous roles.
In the episode, which concludes tonight (Tuesday 21 January), Faith, a female barrister, has mysteriously disappeared, leading Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and her team to investigate after a woman’s severed hand is found in a canal. Fans will remember Kerrie, 36, from her role as Amanda Morgan in Good Cop, where she starred alongside Stephen Graham and Warren Brown, sporting a severe, pulled-back and almost white blonde hairstyle as a new constable on the force.
She’s also known for her appearances in the John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, period drama The Mill, episodes of Casualty, Black Mirror and Vera, as well as recent series The Responder and Showtrial.
The first episode of the Silent Witness two-parter featuring Kerrie has also had fans calling for a major change for lead character Nikki. In an emotional scene, Nikki informs Lucy, Faith’s partner, about the grim discovery of Faith’s hand, but clings to hope that Faith might still be alive. She reveals that she discovered DNA on Faith’s hand that could belong to someone else and needs to swab Faith’s son Josh to rule him out.
As Nikki shared heartwarming scenes with Josh, fans were quick to take to social media, clamouring for Nikki to have her own little ones on Silent Witness in future episodes. One fan gushed on the platform formerly known as Twitter: “Nikki and children”, reports the Mirror. Another added: “Oh Nikki you can see how she’s trying to hold it together #silentwitness.”
A viewer put out a plea: “Nikki and another child. Please make this woman a Mum,” while someone else said: “The way Nikki looks at the kid and makes him feel so comfortable with her in an instant. She’s so maternal.” And yet another chimed in: “She would make the sweetest mum.”
Motherhood might be on the cards for Nikki, who is now romantically involved with Jack Hodgson (played by David Caves) after his heartfelt proposal at the end of the previous series. Emilia Fox, who brings Nikki to life on screen, acknowledges the couple’s romance has won over fans.
“The reaction of fans to the proposal at the end of the last series was amazing,” she shared, “It’s the best, most wonderful feeling when the audience really like something and feel that they’ve got what they wanted. The relationship between Jack and Nikki has been running over such a long period of time, and the expectation has been so great about what would or wouldn’t happen, that we wanted that to be rewarded in the way that the proposal took place. There was a real responsibility to get it right.”