It is with great sadness, that the family of Richard Franklin have asked me to share news of his passing, early this morning. Richard passed away peacefully in his sleep. Details of funeral arrangements will be shared here when announced. Sleep well Richard. #RIP Líam Rudden.

Franklin made his first appearance as Mike Yates in the 1971 Doctor Who story Terror of the Autons. For the next three seasons of the series’ run, he made semi-regular appearances as the dashing young officer, a member of United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Though he only appeared in nine stories, the character became immensely popular with fans.

After making his final regular Doctor Who appearance in Planet of the Spiders, Franklin was invited back for a cameo appearance in the 1983 twentieth anniversary episode, The Five Doctors.

Franklin returned to Doctor Who again in 1993 for Dimensions in Time, a skit televised on the BBC as part of its Comic Relief charity drive. It brought past cast members from the show together in an adventure which also featured cameos by members of the cast of EastEnders.

A photograph of Franklin in role as Yates appeared on screen in the fiftieth anniversary special The Day of the Doctor in 2013. He also appeared in the role on numerous occasions in audio plays for both Big Finish Productions and the BBC, which includes appearing alongside the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker.

In 2002 Franklin wrote The Killing Stone, a novel featuring Yates as the main character. It was initially released as an audio book, read by the author, before publication by Fantom Films in 2013 under the title Operation H.A.T.E.

The rewritten version of the book removed all named references to Doctor Who characters and replaced them with unambiguous equivalents in order to avoid infringing copyright.

Away from the world of Doctor Who Franklin who was principally a stage actor, appeared as a regular character in several high-profile British television programmes, including Crossroads and Emmerdale Farm.

In 2016, he played one of the Death Star engineers in the Star Wars film Rogue One.

Co-star Katy Manning has shared a tribute to the actor on her social media

Franklin became a regular and popular guest on the Comic Con Convention circuit.

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