Her storylines involved an elopement with established character Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen); a competitive love triangle with Ricky and his second wife Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer); an on-off quarrel with sister-in-law Sharon Watts (Letitia Dean); having sex with various antagonists such as Phil's archenemy Steve Owen (Martin Kemp) and wife-beater Trevor Morgan (Alex Ferns); feuding with the rival Watts family that involves Sam sleeping with Sharon's half-brother Dennis Rickman (Nigel Harman) and later getting conned by their illegitimate father Den Watts (Leslie Grantham); getting seduced in a relationship with crime boss Andy Hunter (Michael Higgs) and later marrying him; being betrayed by family lawyer Marcus Christie (Stephen Churchett) when he collaborates with Den's plan to bankrupt the Mitchell Empire; a platonic friendship with Phil's friend Minty Peterson (Cliff Parisi); a lengthy feud with Den's widow Chrissie (Tracy-Ann Oberman) that culminates in the latter framing Sam for Den's murder; an affair with local club owner Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) that leads to the birth of their son Ricky Branning (Henri Charles/Frankie Day); becoming a suspect in the murder of her uncle Archie (Larry Lamb); feuds with Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) and Denise Fox (Diane Parish); scheming with Phil's rival Jonah Tyler (Mark Mooney) in taking over the family assets assets; discovering that her son Ricky is becoming a father at twelve years old; and publicly revealing Phil’s one-night stand with Emma Harding (Patsy Kensit), which leads to her departure from the show.

Sam fails to earn schooling qualifications and starts to believe that she can have a career in modelling, but when she attempts to get a portfolio done by a professional photographer, he persuades her to do a topless shoot and the photos are then published in a pornographic magazine.

Sam then proceeds to have flings with Trevor Morgan (Alex Ferns) and Dennis Rickman (Nigel Harman), respectively – as well as briefly having a relationship with her ex-lover Beppe.

She clashes with Den's adoptive daughter Sharon (Letitia Dean) over the insurance of the nightclub and Dennis vows revenge, and he is only warned off when his friend Andy Hunter (Michael Higgs), Walford's gangland kingpin, begins a relationship with Sam.

Andy later fools Sam into signing over control of Phil's house, and she is then conned out of all the Mitchell businesses by family lawyer Marcus Christie (Stephen Churchett) and Den.

On the night of Den's wedding anniversary to his late wife Angie (Anita Dobson), the three women confront him at The Queen Victoria public house shortly after he closes up.

The Mitchells pay a visit to the Slaters and desperately try to pressure Stacey into dropping her story for Chrissie so that Sam can be released, but to no avail, due to interference from Kat, who is trying to protect Zoe.

She sacks staff members Dotty Cotton (Milly Zero) and Vinny Panesar (Shiv Jalota) in the process, leading to Phil replacing Sam with Sharon as bar manager.

Just before the opening of Peggy's, Sam, Kat, Sharon, and Nancy's grandmother Shirley Carter (Linda Henry) are all held hostage by robbers who attempt to rob the bar, under the presumption that they have been sent by Jonah.

Sam then abandons Ricky when she receives a text from Phil, inviting her to join him and the rest of the family in Peggy's bar to welcome in the New Year, and to make amends.

However, it is revealed that twelve-year-old resident Lily Slater (Lillia Turner) has fallen pregnant and she names Sam's son Ricky as the father following a one-night stand.

Several months later, Sam returns to the square when she is thrown out of a white van by a henchman whose boss she owes money to; she tells Phil that she has 24 hours to come up with £100,000 after she became involved in drug dealing whilst in Spain.

She has also revealed that her off-screen relationship with actors McFadden and Kemp mirrored her character's on-screen one: "In the soap they were my older brothers, always looking out for me, making sure I didn't get into trouble, and off set they were exactly the same.

"[6] The character has been described by Hilary Kingsley, author the EastEnders Handbook, as a "tease [...] a pretty girl who thinks she can get anything she wants, thanks to her own brand of sexy wheedling.

"[5] Kate Lock, author of EastEnders Who's Who, has described Sam as "Headstrong, streetwise and pretty [...] a chip off the old Mitchell block, though her methods of manipulation are marginally more subtle than [her brothers].

One bat of a sooty eyelash is enough to charm most men into submission and she can wind doting mum Peggy round her little finger [...] [when] she returned to the Square [in 1999], Sam had lost her kittenish cuteness and hardened up, becoming more EastEnd moll than Barbie doll.

The week's worth of episodes focusing on their marriage were filmed on-location and have been described by former EastEnders scriptwriter, Colin Brake, as a "farce-like chase round the country".

[5] The marriage was portrayed as problematic, fraught with interference from their families, lack of money, and Ricky's jealousy of Sam's partying and modelling career, including a topless photo shoot.

Commenting on her initial departure, Westbrook has said, "My contract was up for renewal and I thought it was time for me to move on [...] As much as I enjoyed being in EastEnders [...] I was also well aware of the fact that I was in danger of being type-cast forever if I carried on playing Sam.

During that time Sam had, after all, been involved in a story about under-age sex, run off to Gretna Green to marry Ricky, been evicted from her home, become a squatter, tried her luck as a topless model, fought on a regular basis with Grant and Phil, and gone through a marriage break-up.

"[6] The character's "dramatic" return to EastEnders aired on 25 July 1995 and began when her screen brothers traced Sam to Spain and she ended up in bed with "bad boy" David Wicks (Michael French).

I could tell they felt responsible for me but of course ultimately there wasn't much they could do to help [...] Within a couple of weeks I was called into a meeting and told very politely that they were going to let me go early and terminate my contract.

[17] Her plea came at a time when executive producer Matthew Robinson had already considered bringing Sam back, but because of Westbrook's past problems, he wanted to recast the role to another actress.

[18] However, the BBC's Controller of Continuing Drama Series, Mal Young, thought they were judging Westbrook unfairly, believing a lot of the stories printed about her in the tabloid press.

[9] Annett has commented, "she'd done...no television, secondly, she was coming into an immensely popular and beloved show, and the third thing was that she was taking over a role played by Danniella Westbrook...for [a decade]."

Medcalf has revealed that she was extremely nervous when she was informed that she would have to enact love scenes with Kemp, who aside from his part in EastEnders, was renowned to viewers as a member of the 1980s pop band Spandau Ballet.

The culmination of the plot – which saw Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden return to EastEnders as Phil and Grant to exonerate Sam – signified the departure of Kim Medcalf, who opted to leave the serial in 2005.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Kim Medcalf for her great work playing Sam Mitchell for three years and welcome Danniella back to pick up the baton once again.

He commented, 'The rot set in around the time when one of the show's female leads, Sam, metamorphosed from introspective beauty into oestrogen-fuelled Al Caponette, making Billy burn down Den's club.

'[65] Kevin O'Sullivan, writing for the Sunday Mirror, was critical of Danniella Westbrook's return in 2009, highlighting an 'inexplicable personality transplant' in Sam and decrying the 'homecoming' storyline as 'an insult to long-suffering viewers' intelligence'.