Victoria Derbyshire

Early life

Derbyshire was born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire. She attended Bury Grammar School for Girls, an independent school, before studying English language and literature at the University of Liverpool. Afterwards, she attended a postgraduate diploma course in radio and TV journalism at Preston Polytechnic (now the University of Central Lancashire). She has claimed that her father, Anthony, abused her, her mother and her younger brother and sister.

Career

Derbyshire worked as a reporter in local radio, then joined BBC Radio 5 Live in 1998 as a co-presenter of the breakfast show with Julian Worricker. The programme won Gold Sony Awards in 1998 and 2002. In January 2003 Worricker left the breakfast show, and Derbyshire was partnered by Nicky Campbell. After a spell of maternity leave, she took over the morning news programme in August 2004..

Derbyshire has also worked on a number of television news and political programmes including: presenting Newsnight, appearances on This Week, an interview series, Victoria Derbyshire Interviews.., on the BBC News Channel, and Watchdog. She hosted a sports chat show on Channel 4 on Saturday mornings called SportsTalk. She has been sent to cover some of the biggest global stories since joining 5 Live: 9/11, the Paris Concorde crash, general elections, World Cups and Olympic Games. Her programme was the first to broadcast a show live from Zimbabwe, in 2009 following President Mugabe's lifting of restrictions on international journalists. Her programme made radio history when it became the first to broadcast live from an abortion clinic in 2012, and later that year broadcast from an animal testing laboratory.

In October 2011 Derbyshire made her debut on Have I Got News for You.

In autumn 2013, under the new editorship of Ian Katz, Derbyshire began occasionally presenting Newsnight while continuing to present her daily 5 Live programme. Her final Radio 5 Live show was broadcast on 5 September 2014.

Her current affairs programme began airing on 7 April 2015 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.

On the morning of the Grenfell Tower Fire, North Kensington, June 2017, she interviewed a father of two who escaped the blaze with his family. A clip of Victoria hugging him when he broke down as he described the horrors of what he witnessed went viral.

Personal life

Derbyshire has two children with her partner Mark Sandell, an editor at Wise Buddah Productions. Her younger brother, Nick Derbyshire, was an England county cricketer between 1994 and 1996.

In August 2015 Derbyshire announced on Twitter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would be having a mastectomy, but would continue to present her programme as often as possible during treatment.

She recorded video diaries about her cancer treatment, from her mastectomy through chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Her video diary about her first chemotherapy session went viral. Her diaries were some of the most viewed on the BBC website.

Awards

In 2009 she won the Nick Clarke Award for her sensitive handling of an interview with a man accused and then cleared of date rape.

At the 2011 Sony Awards she won the Gold award for Best News & Current Affairs Programme. At the 2012 Sony Awards she beat Dame Jenni Murray, Evan Davis and Jeremy Vine to become the Sony Academy's Speech Broadcaster of the Year. In December 2013 her broadcast from an animal testing laboratory won the 2013 "Best Live Journalism" Award at the Association for International Broadcasting; the judges said it was "classic investigative journalism, in-depth reporting, well-balanced and thoroughly researched".

At the 2014 Radio Academy Awards (formerly the Sony Awards), she again won the Speech Broadcaster of the Year award, beating BBC colleagues Justin Webb, Jane Garvey and Melvyn Bragg, and in November 2014, the Association for International Broadcasting awarded her the best radio programme for a live broadcast from a dementia clinic that specialises in treating those with early onset dementia.

She was named Pink News Broadcaster of the Year in October 2015 and 2016. In January 2016 and January 2017 she was nominated for RTS Network Presenter of the Year.

In 2017 she won a BAFTA Television Award for her interview with four former footballers about the alleged sexual abuse they experienced as boys. In her acceptance speech, which she dedicated to the men, she said: 'You cannot underestimate the courage it took for these men to talk about this on national television, live. As a result of what they did, hundreds more potential victims have come forward to the police'.

Criticism

In 2005, Derbyshire was criticised for interviewing the convicted sex offender Jonathan King after his release from prison.

In 2006, Jamie Oliver strongly rebuked Derbyshire, after she questioned his commitment to helping young people in the Cornwall area.

In 2007, 5 Live listeners forced a phone-in poll about sympathy for Madeleine McCann's parents off the air. Soon afterward, the McCanns appeared on Derbyshire's programme to mark the fourth anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.

In September 2010, she interviewed her own 5 Live boss about why he wasn't moving to MediaCityUK in Salford when the station moved in autumn 2011. Describing the interview, The Guardian said: "Derbyshire's grilling of the station's controller Adrian Van Klaveren made Jeremy Paxman's infamous interview with Mark Thompson look like a vicar's tea party." Despite this, Derbyshire never moved to Salford and sometimes presented her programme from London.