- Polls apart - 3rd May 2024
- Another letter of the law - 2nd May 2024
- Shopped - 1st May 2024
Publicity about the presenter of BBC Cymru Wales Today (WT) thanking health staff for saving her father-in-law’s life puts centre stage exclusive revelations on The Eye.
Lucy Owen who also presented the recently-axed consumer rights show X-Ray, told WalesOnline (WO) her partner’s father, Degwel Owen, has now “bounced back” from a recent illness and is doing well.
Other facts, however, were avoided in the article about her, and only our journalists have reported them.
For example we have shown how Mrs Owen had an affair with the former BBC Radio Wales (RW) Editor Colin Paterson.
This shines an interesting light on her comments in WO (which were on Twitter too) that she was: “‘So grateful for the exceptional care over the past few weeks for Rhodri’s dad. Staff at the Princess of Wales Hospital, Cwm Taf Morgannwg, saved his life on Monday night'”.
Past events have also proved controversial, and these were not in the WO ‘story’ either.
When Mr Paterson’s former paramour was newsreading on WT, programme-makers used a picture of Brighton Pavilion during coverage of the start of the hugely important Muslim month of Ramadan instead of a mosque, and the mistake was then featured in the Brighton Argus.
One Twitter user complained: “BBC Wales showing a picture of the Brighton Pavilion and getting it confused for a mosque when talking about Ramadan is kind of f****d?”.
Another wrote furiously: “Not happy they’ve used a shot of Brighton Pavilion as though it’s a mosque (presumably)”.
Mrs Owen had also tweeted over Christmas 2020 about how she had taken a trip to the beach at Southerndown in the Vale of Glamorgan, when others were governed by lockdown regulations.
She treated us, as well, to a video of how she had suffered a “turkey drama” (presumably at her South Wales home) by leaving plastic on the roast, but it did not compare to the crisis endured by the families to whom she broadcasted every night with the latest lockdown rules.
She announced online, as she showed us what had happened: “I left a bit of the plastic on it…”
In the past, Mrs Owen has also described as a ‘crisis’ wearing odd shoes into the office to broadcast the lunchtime bulletin, and asked whether anyone would notice.
She even included for us a shocked face emoji after that comment, and following it Mrs Owen said on Twitter: “Crisis over!”.
Yet she could, perhaps, have focused on the BBC CW website saying the same day that coronavirus/Covid-19 was the biggest cause of death in Wales that month, which many might see as a real drama.
This was what she would have read instead of complaining about wearing odd shoes: “The mortality rate rose “significantly” for a second month, to 260 deaths per 100,000 people in Wales. It was also more than twice the rate in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived area”.
Meanwhile she had tweeted about how she had gone to the beach with her dog over the Christmas holiday, and hoped it had been “restful” for people, yet it was unlikely to have been restful for others, when rules on Christmas Day itself forbade it.
The Welsh Government (WG) said sternly: “If you are travelling away from home, you should travel to meet your Christmas bubble and return home in the course of 25 December...You should keep taking steps to reduce the spread of the virus, and this will help ensure that you enjoy Christmas Day as safely as possible.”
Travel advice from South Wales Police (SWP) warned people then about going to beaches “you shouldn’t be driving to these places”.
But Mrs Owen is no stranger to publicity, and has herself published a book which raises funds for the Noah’s Ark Charity for the Children’s Hospital of Wales called ‘Boo-a-bog In The Park’.
Advertising a settled family life, she proclaimed at the time: “The story is about how a little boy gets though a situation that is challenging for him with the help of an imaginary friend. But it’s all about finding any way through a difficult time or situation.
“It’s been a real family affair, with Rhod translating, and Gabs (young son) came up with idea for Boo-a-bog fun and games at the end of the book. And the link to the charity as well makes it extra special for us. The theme of the story feels a good fit with the charity.”
Perhaps the ‘real family affair’, might have been mentioned in the item about her in WO.
Or perhaps not…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s extraordinary 39 year award-winning career in journalism (when he has been the only journalist to have revealed the truth about Lucy Owen) as he was gripped by the rare incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
