Nicky Campbell, the Long Lost Family presenter and BBC Radio personality, has revealed his daughter has been badly injured in a hit-and-run incident.
Campbell, 65, posted on his social media on Saturday morning (20 June) to explain that he’d had a “long and emotional night” in A&E after his daughter Lilla, 26, was hit by an e-bike in the Peckham area of London.
“Hopefully there is CCTV,” Campbell wrote. “Once he saw the ambulance arrive (2mins) and the crowd gathering – he scarpered. Her sisters were with her. She is badly injured but now at home. It could have been so much worse. We are incredibly lucky.”
Despite the good news, Campbell said the experience in A&E was made harder by an incident in which a drunken man entered the room Lilla was resting in and exposed himself.
“When she and her sisters and a friend arrived at A&E, a drunk entered the trauma room where they were and exposed himself to them,” Campbell wrote. “The police were there and he has been arrested. The police were magnificent. I spoke to them when I arrived at 3.15 and he is now in custody.”
Campbell went on to express his thanks both to the police and to the staff of King’s College Hospital in Lambeth. “They were all bloody superb,” he wrote, alongside a heart emoji.
Many supporters sent their sympathies to Campbell’s daughter online, while expressing their anger at the dangers of e-bikes.
“Something has to be done about the dangers of unregulated e-bikes which are often used for street crime involving mounting pavements and escaping without any consideration for any pedestrians in their path,” one person wrote on X.
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Another person wrote: “How absolutely terrible. I’m glad your daughter is recovering well. Hospitals have so much to cope with now.”
A TV veteran, Campbell is best known for presenting Wheel of Fortune from 1988 to 1996, as well as the consumer affairs show Watchdog from 2001 to 2009. He currently co-presents ITV’s Long Lost Family alongside Davina McCall, in which he helps people reconnect with estranged relatives or relatives they’ve never met.
