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TV Naturalist
Breaks His Back
TV naturalist Steve Backshall is recovering in hospital after
breaking his back in a rock climbing accident.
The TV presenter, 35, slipped 25 foot down a cliff face while climbing in
the rain with his travel writer friend Tarquin Cooper in the Forest of Dean,
Gloucestershire last Saturday.
The former Really Wild Show host was left with a fractured vertebrae, left
leg, left foot and a dislocated ankle.
He said: "I’ve broken two vertebrae but I could have been
paralysed - or worse.
"The rock was wet so I stopped to rest but the next thing I was heading very
quickly towards the ground.
"All I can remember is landing with a sickening thud. I can't begin to
describe how painful it was, but I'm lucky.'
His friend Cooper, who witnessed the horrific accident, said: 'It was awful.
I saw him cartwheel down before hitting the ground with a thump.
"I couldn't carry him so he put his arm round me and we walked to the car -
45 minutes away."
Backshall is hoping to leave hospital next week.
His next TV show, Lost Land Of The Jaguar, will screen on BBC One on July
30.
13:33
July
19 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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Former
BBC Journalist On Drugs Charge
A former BBC journalist is facing up to 20 years in jail and
15 strokes of the cane after being arrested in Singapore for alleged drug
offences.
Peter Lloyd, 41, an Australian who has worked in Britain for the BBC and
Sky News, is said by Singapore authorities to have supplied a Singaporean
man with drugs and to have tested positive for amphetamines.
Lloyd is now a well-known face on the Australian Broadcasting Commission,
working from New Delhi as the network's South Asian correspondent.
Police from Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau arrested Lloyd on Wednesday
after a tip off.
Last night the bureau said Lloyd had supplied a local man with drugs and he
had also been caught with 0.8g of methamphetamine, one smoking pipe and six
syringes. A urine test for the drug had also tested positive, said police.
An ABC spokesman said Lloyd was in Singapore on leave from his post in
New Delhi.
The network's director of news, John Cameron, said he had been advised by
the Foreign Affairs Department that Lloyd had been arrested and was likely
to be charged with drug-related offences.
'The ABC has not been told the full details of the case, but we were aware
that Peter had been undergoing hospital treatment in Singapore for a serious
eye infection which he contracted while on leave,' said Cameron.
Singapore shows no mercy to people convicted of drug offences and anyone
convicted of carrying or supplying narcotics judged to be a commercial
amount is sent to the gallows, whether they are local people or foreigners.
While the amount Lloyd is alleged to have been found with is not a
commercial quantity, he faces many years in jail and a lashing with a bamboo
cane if convicted.
He joined the ABC in 1988, working in the Sydney TV newsroom for three years
before moving to Britain to work for the BBC.
In 2000, he returned to ABC television news and later worked for a radio
current affairs programme.
00:11
July
19 2008 - waveguide.co.uk
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