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Sandra played one of the main parts in a Carlton two-part drama, Too Good To Be True. It was first aired on 22nd and 23rd September 2003 on ITV1. She played the character Carol Lewis.

Carol is married to Robert (played by Peter Davison) and she is his second wife. Robert’s first wife, Tina (played by Niamh Cusack) starts dating Matthew (Adrian Lukis), a man she met on the internet and Robert starts acting jealous, although he says it is because he is worried about their two children. It is clear, however, that Robert does not want Tina to be seeing anyone else, and he uses the excuse that she met him on the internet to say that he could be dangerous, especially for the children. Tina, however, continues to see him.

Robert begins to ignore Carol and puts all of his effort and thought into Tina and their two children, Amy and Charlie. Carol is the only one who can see that Robert is becoming unhealthily obsessed with the situation, and she decides to leave him.

Robert continues to grow more and more jealous of the situation and ends up beating up Matthew. Matthew is left seriously injured in hospital. While Robert is being questioned and held by the police, Carol goes to see Tina to talk about it. She tells Tina that she knows Robert is a good man and wouldn’t have meant to hurt Matthew so much. It is clear that she still loves him, even after the way he was treating her. She tearfully tells Tina that she only left him because she felt left out; that Robert seemed to focus all his attention on the children and there was no room left for her in his life.

Robert is sentenced to six months in prison, and while he is behind bars Carol goes to visit him and tells him that if he wants to, she would like to give their marriage a second chance once he is released from prison. Robert agrees, although it is clear by his less than enthusiastic behaviour that it isn’t entirely sure about it. However, Carol either doesn’t see this or works hard to convince herself that he is happy for them to get back together.

Robert learns from a phone call to Amy that Tina and Matthew are going to get married, though Tina had been trying to hide it from him knowing that he wouldn’t be happy and fearing what he might do. By the day of the wedding, Robert is out of prison and it is clear that he is plotting something. But Carol still seems oblivious of his cold attitude towards her and is still living in her dream world where he loves her and is glad that they are back together. By now it is clear to the audience that Robert doesn’t care for her at all and all that is on his mind all day is Tina and the wedding, even though Carol has taken him to the countryside to look around and think about moving there; it was the one condition Carol put forward of them getting back together that they moved away from Tina and the children – Carol obviously hoping that by doing this he would pay her some attention again.

That night in their hotel room, Carol tells Robert that when they split up, she stopped taking the pill and she didn’t start taking it again when they got back together. She reveals that after thinking their situation through, what she wants more than anything is for them to have their own children. She says that although she’s blamed the children for coming between them at times, she admires how he loves them so much and she knows that he would love their children just as much.

Carol seems to be perfectly content and has clearly convinced herself that their marriage is fine, but Robert is still undoubtedly plotting something. We discover what when Robert leaves the hotel in the middle of the night and drives to Tina and Matthew’s house. When the maid arrives to clean Robert and Carol’s hotel room the next morning, Carol is found dead. Robert has obviously murdered her and plans to try and return his life to where it was before he and Tina divorced each other.

The suspense that has been building up since the beginning of the programme comes to a head as Robert arrives at Tina’s new house and stabs Matthew, leaving him bleeding on the kitchen floor. He then tells Tina how they can forget everything that has happened recently and revert back to their married life and how she’s the only one that he wants. Tina obviously is distraught that her new husband’s life is in danger and worrying about what Robert might do to her. She stabs him in the back with a kitchen knife to free herself.

The ending shows Matthew, Tina carrying their baby in her arms, Amy and Charlie all on their way to visit Robert’s grave. Although the children are clearly sad as they lay flowers on their father’s grave, the family seem content overall.

It all ended in tragedy for Carol, because she so desperately wanted everything to be perfect again. She loved Robert so much and wanted him to love her again that she couldn't see how dangerous he was and didn't realise until it was too late. She managed to fool herself into believing that things could return to how they were before, even though she must have known deep down that Robert didn’t feel the same.