Parents of novichok cop blast BBC drama
She signs up for TV ancestry show
SHARON OSBOURNE ON FATHER DON ARDEN BATTERING DS Nick Bailey THE parents of a police officer poisoned in the Salisbury novichok attack have criticised the BBC’s plans to “sensationalise” the incident in a two-part TV drama.
DS Nick Bailey, 39, came into SHARON Osbourne is delving into her ancestry on Who Do You Think You Are? despite having fallen out with nearly all her family.
While on good terms with husband Ozzy and their three children, she spent years estranged from her father, mother and older brother David and has admitted hating her maternal gran.
The former X Factor judge, 66, was this week spotted filming for the BBC1 genealogy show in locations including Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
But it remains to be seen whether she delves into background of her Irish mother Hope, who died in 1998, or her music mogul father
Don Arden.
Osbourne, who now lives in the US, grew to despise her dad, who died in 2007.
She once said: “There were times when I was on the floor crying and shaking because he’d threatened to come over to the house and kill me.
“He’s an evil old bastard and I can’t wait for him to die.”
Don, who managed Little Richard, Small Faces and Electric Light Orchestra, was born Harry Levy but changed his name to make a career in contact with the nerve agent during the assassination attempt on double agent Sergei Skripal.
He spent two weeks in hospital and told how recovering from the attack was like an “emotional show business. Sharon wrote in her autobiography: “With such an obviously Jewish name he’d get nowhere, he said, and he’d had his fill of anti-Semitism in the Army during the war.” Having learned the music business working for her father, Sharon waged war on him in the 80s, once trying to run over him in her car as Ozzy cowered in the passenger seat. Don sued his daughter for millions when she took her husband-to-be away from his record label.
After a 20-year estrangement, the pair were reconciled shortly before his death. Sharon didn’t go to her mother’s funeral, simply remarking “that’s a shame” when told of her death.
“I didn’t like my mother at all,” she said. “There was no friendship, nothing at all.”
Sharon couldn’t bear maternal gran Dolly either. She described her as “incredibly ugly” with the biggest nose she had seen. But she was close to her paternal gran, remembering: “She would cook for me. She would tuck me up in bed.” Seven other celebrities have signed up for the long-running BBC1 family tree show, including Kate Winslet and Mark Wright. Sharon, mum, dad and David battering”. Last week the BBC said it had commissioned a drama about the attack last March that later killed mum Dawn Sturgess, 44.
But DS Bailey’s dad Steve and mum Sue said the incident is still too “raw”. In a letter they wrote: “This is inappropriately premature for the people of Salisbury, in particular... victims and families.”
A BBC spokesman refused to comment on the Baileys’ criticism.
My father threatened to kill me...he’s an evil old bastard and I can’t wait for him to die