EastEnders axe for actor Gaffney after ‘he pestered a stranger’

Gone: Dean Gaffney EASTENDERS star Dean Gaffney has been axed from the BBC One soap.

Bosses terminated his contract following claims Gaffney, (41) asked a stranger, online, for sexy photographs.

The actor — Robbie Jackson in Albert Square — had only a few weeks left on his contract when he was written out early.

Viewers recently saw his character leave to spend time with his screen son in India but did not know that Gaffney had been written out.

A source said: “Bosses have left the door open for his character, so there’s always the chance that one day he might be able to return.”

Gaffney has recently been posting snaps of himself at a holistic retreat in Marbella, Spain.

A source told the Daily Star Sunday, which first reported the story: “After everything that’s happened Dean realised that he had to completely change his lifestyle.

“He’s had a massive wake-up call and wants to get his life back on track.”

One image from the retreat, posted by Gaffney, shows him sitting on top of a mountain and he wrote: “I’m not that guy who goes to the gym all the time so I had to find another way of giving myself a goal, and this retreat was what I like to call ‘a step in the right direction’.

“My health is important I need to always be aware of that, not just physically but mentally.”

On another, he wrote: “Feed the soul not the ego.”

Gaffney previously split from 25-year-old girlfriend Rebekah Rose-Ward.

An EastEnders spokeswoman said: “We never discuss artists’ contracts.”