4:27pm UK, Tuesday March 18, 2003

Dennis Waterman is to play a TV cop for the first time since The Sweeney ended 25 years ago.

The actor - who played Detective Sergeant George Carter in the hard-hitting ITV series - is to appear in BBC1's New Tricks.

In the comedy drama he plays Gerry Standing, one of three retired policemen who comes back to look again at an unsolved crime.

He stars alongside James Bolam and Alun Armstrong, as well as At Home With the Braithwaites star Amanda Redman, with whom he once had an affair.

Waterman, 55, found fame in The Sweeney with the late John Thaw.

The series ended in 1978 and he went to the other side of the law, starring as Terry McCann in Minder.

The actor said his experience on The Sweeney made him feel like a genuine former law enforcer.

"When we were first discussing New Tricks, I was talking as if I was a real ex-policeman because The Sweeney was filmed in Gerry Standing's era and we mixed a lot with the real police at that time.

"I reckon I'm the only bona fide ex-Bill in it.

"Playing George Carter stood me in great stead for this part, but Carter was much straighter than Standing.

"He would have done all the interviews and gone up the career ladder. I reckon Standing is a more worldly version of John Thaw's character Regan instead. He's an old-fashioned 80s thief taker who's been ducking and diving to make a living since he left the force."

New Tricks is a one-off at this stage but could become a series if it is a hit with viewers, the BBC said.