I got this article from the IC Showbiz website, which has since closed down. I can't find the article on the site that's replaced it, otherwise I would have just provided a link to this article.

Date - 30th September 2000
Author - Christine Smith
Newspaper - The Mirror

The Bill actress Clara Salaman talks about her own terrifying brush with violent crime...

For half an hour Bill star Clara Salaman has been massaging her leg.
She's in some agony after tiring herself out the previous week, running up and down a street with Billy Murray for a forthcoming episode of the ITV drama.
"God, I am so unfit," she said, laughing while bending her leg. "It's really aching, but it doesn't half serve me right!"
It's 11am and I have met up with 33-year-old Clara at the swanky Langham Hilton Hotel in London for a coffee and a chat.
And it's here that the actress - who has just been nominated for a top TV award for her role in the police drama series - recounts her own terrifying brush with violent crime.
Twelve years ago, late at night and alone in London's Ladbroke Grove, she witnessed a murder.
"I saw this man being hit in the stomach," she recalled. "For some reason, I was mesmerised by it all and just stood there watching.
"It just looked like a fight. What I did not know was the attackers had a knife and were stabbing him.
"They ran off and the man staggered around. I didn't call the police because I thought it was just a fight. I didn't know he was going to die."
A few days later, the police knocked on Clara's door and she was called as a key witness in a murder trial that ran for several days at the Old Bailey.
She was in the box for around an hour. "I could not ID the man because it was very dark when the murder took place, but I could verify what happened," she recalled. "The man accused claimed he had just been trying to break up a fight.
"But he was not telling the truth - the man I saw was the one who had stabbed the poor man.
"But I really was thrown in at the deep end. I wasn't briefed at all.
"I did not know who was the prosecution or defence lawyer, and so I got very confused when I came to give the evidence. So much so that his legal team got me muddled.
"They portrayed me as some dizzy blonde actress who did not know what I was talking about. They said I did not even realise there were leaves on the trees. The man was acquitted. I think it was partly because of me. I didn't phone the police, you see, and his team were able to cast doubt on my evidence."
The ordeal left Clara terrified. She says: "They did not then have the witness protection scheme that they do now. I wish I had had it.
"I felt the man accused knew too much information about me - where I lived, worked, what I looked like. I thought he would come after me. Thank God he didn't.
"I was even more scared because a man in the same street had been threatened by the man's gang."
"It's rather ironical, seeing that I am in The Bill now."
Clara has been nominated for best newcomer in this year's National TV Awards for her portrayal of DS Clare Stanton, the undercover officer currently having an affair with DS Boulton, played by Russell Boulter.
Clare's exposure of corruption at Sun Hill in the next few weeks will spark a mass exodus. Old favourites DS Don Beech (Billy Murray), Chief Supt Brownlow (Peter Ellis) and DI Deakin (Sean Scott) are set to go.
Clara - wearing a trendy brown leather jacket, green V-necked top and blue jeans that show off her 5ft 4ins, size-10 figure - is one of the wackiest actresses I have met.
Loud and funny, she swears regularly - and hates the whole fame game.
She is thrilled by the award nomination but she can't believe I would find her interesting.
"I'm boring," she told me repeatedly. I laugh - that is something Clara could not be described as. Fun and zany, maybe. A luvvie actress, no way. It's partly down to her upbringing.
The youngest of three, she was sent to study philosophy at the age of four by her dad, a lecturer in the subject, and her mum, a theatrical agent turned landlord.
"I was a guinea pig pupil," she said. "We did all sorts of things - meditation, philosophy. A lot of it was incredibly enlightening.
"But you had the same teacher every year. We grew to hate each other. She became obsessed that I was a rotten apple in the school. I quickly learnt to have no respect for adults.
"I got thrown out when I was 14 ... yeeaahhh, I was screwed up by it," she said, reflecting for a moment. "I spent some time at home to get over it."
After a month in France, designed to improve her French (it didn't), Clara was sent to boarding school.
"It was a strict school - Hitleresque hippie almost," she said, shaking her head with laughter.
"I found it hard. I could not understand why you were allowed to wear trousers but not sit on the windowsill, or why you could watch TV but you have to turn your light off at 8.30pm."
Yes, you guessed it, more trouble - she got suspended after getting drunk with a Muslim in the matron's study.
Clara laughs as she recounts the tale, and then starts massaging her leg again.
"Are you sure you are all right?" I ask. "Yes, I am, don't worry." So what did she get up to after leaving school with three A-levels?
"I went to Turkey with my boyfriend," Clara said. "It's a long story."
Most of her anecdotes are very amusing, but unprintable. Let's just say Clara had an interesting time in Turkey.
"We only had £200 in traveller's cheques and needed to get a job quickly," she said.
"A captain felt sorry for us and invited us on his ship ... we leapt at the chance but we were told we had to load all this furniture on the boat for him.
"The next minute, we are told to dump all the stuff in foreign waters. So there we were, in gale-force winds, dumping the furniture - very expensive stuff from Harrods - into the sea."
She stopped in mid-flow, burst into laughter and added: "I couldn't believe it. I thought: 'What the hell am I doing here?' but we survived to tell the tale."
Months later, she returned to England and started a drama course at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
By the time she had graduated, Clara, then 22, had tied the knot with her boyfriend. Two years on and they had split up.
"It didn't work out," she explained. "He was a deckhand and he was at sea all the time. He told me it was either boats or acting and asked why I wanted to be an actress. I told him it was a good question but I knew I had to pursue acting."
Blimey, I say, you have packed a lot in during your life.
Clara - who went on to star in several theatre productions before landing a small part in Heartbeat - goes red. More confessions follow.
In 1993 she fell in love with a Spaniard during the filming of the series All in the Game for ITV. Two years ago, she joined him in Madrid but she missed England too much and returned. Shortly afterwards, he dumped her.
"I was heartbroken. I was so depressed, went on Prozac. I had been besotted with him," she said.
She suddenly stopped. "Bloody hell, I'm desperate for a cigarette. Can we move seats?" I oblige. Once settled at a different table, Clara rolls a smoke.
"Now where was I?" she asked. "Oh yes, back in England. Mmmm, my agent's business collapsed."
Out of work, she got a job as a cleaner. She had no money. Her debts grew and times were very "low" but despite it all Clara was happy.
"But you know what? I was successful at being a so-called failure when I was cleaning. Everything was great, I had no responsibility, no hassle. Then out of the blue, I got a call from ITV's Always and Everyone. They wanted me to write an episode for them."
Two weeks later, Clara was hired by The Bill to play DS Stanton.
"I really love doing The Bill but it is very tiring," she said. "I have been working 85-hour weeks."
"Several months ago, it was just too much and I started sobbing. I was exhausted. They were really good, though - gave me so much support.
"Hey, wouldn't it be great if we could do four days a week?"
I agree - and ask if she has any other regrets about the job. No not at all... she can't believe her luck. Even if it does mean she has little time to see her actor boyfriend, Paul Brennen, whom she lives with in north London.
"He has been working nights, so we have literally seen each other for half an hour a week," she added.
"He makes me laugh so much and understands the business.
"Would I get married again? Not something I want to do. I mean, why get married? A lovely dish-washer wouldn't go amiss but when I got married the first time I intended to keep my vows. "
Pausing, she added: "I do want children at some point. I know I am 33 but I am not worried about the whole biological clock thing."
Two hours later, Clara is still massaging that leg. She's got an another appointment after our chat and is praying she will make it there in one piece.
As she picks up her bag to leave, she jokes that I will probably think she is "bonkers".
I laugh and tell her that is just the sort of person I like.