Louise Raymond is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Carol Harrison from May 1998 to April 1999.

Louise arrives in Albert Square in May 1998, just in time to halt the proceedings of her husband Terry (Gavin Richards)'s marriage to Irene Hills (Roberta Taylor).

Although their marriage had ended in separation many years ago, Terry is still legally married to Louise and had refused to grant her a divorce in order to get out of paying the settlement.

Both Tiffany and Simon find it difficult to cope with their mother's sudden reemergence, but Louise manages to win them round.

After reuniting with her children, Louise decides to move to Walford, mainly to support Tiffany, who is going through a traumatic time after the break-up of her marriage to Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp).

Louise initially denies her feelings, embarking on a fling with Gianni di Marco (Marc Bannerman) to put Grant off.

The next day, Louise is wracked with guilt, which is compounded by the fact that Tiffany has decided that she wants to reunite with Grant.

Louise is attacked in November of that year and it is Grant who comes to her rescue, which nearly leads to them having sex a second time, stopped only by Simon's unexpected appearance.

When Louise finds out that Grant has attempted to keep her daughter away from her, she goes round to The Queen Victoria public house to confront him, accusing him of using her for sex.

After another trivial dalliance with Gianni and more squabbling with Terry, Louise decides to leave Walford too in April 1999 to live with Simon and Tony.

She was desperately unhappy, she was being physically abused by Terry and ultimately lost all confidence in herself and her ability to look after the kids so she scarpered.

Louise was shown to give in to temptation and sleep with Grant in an hour-long special, airing in September on a Sunday evening, deviating from the typical weekly broadcasting time and schedule of EastEnders.

[3] Discussing the storyline, a BBC source claimed "Louise has come back to the Square to make it up to Tiffany and Simon, whom she walked out on when they were kids.

"[5] The storyline was part of executive producer Matthew Robinson's attempt to win ratings amidst competition from rival soap Coronation Street.

And yeah, it may have seemed on the surface to be a perfect soap melodrama triangle - woman sleeping with her daughter's husband - but I told the producers I wanted this storyline to be sensational, not sensationalistic, and I think by and large we succeeded [...] it was grounded in a psychological semblance to reality, really.