 The departure of Russ from the series followed fellow cast members Jamie Lomas, Chris Fountain and Emma Rigby's decisions to leave their roles of Warren Fox, Justin Burton and Hannah Ashworth respectively.Russ left the village on 3 June 2009 after kidnapping his son, Max McQueen, from the McQueen family.On 31 May 2018, it was announced that Russ would return to the series and Manning would return to filming in summer 2018.