Jan Leeming, 80, in holiday mugging hell
Former BBC newsreader left with six-inch wound after foiling masked bag snatcher
FORMER newsreader Jan Leeming was left with a six-inch gash in her arm after fighting off a bag snatcher in the south of France.
Miss Leeming, 80, also suffered heavy bruising in the attempted mugging at a cash machine while on holiday.
The masked thug rugby-tackled her to the ground but was unable to pull the bag from her grasp and fled empty-handed.
Miss Leeming said it brought back unpleasant memories of an incident in 1987 when three youths broke into BBC Television Centre in London, sprayed ammonia in her face and stole her handbag.
The new attack happened at 1.30pm on Saturday in the Provence village of Mouries, near Arles, where she was staying with friends. Miss Leeming said she was left ‘very shaken’ by the ‘horrid but well-orchestrated’ mugging.
She was with one friend, who was using an ATM, when a young man in a face mask approached and held out his hand.
‘Being courteous I took it,’ Miss Leeming said. The man tackled her to the ground and her head came ‘very close to an oncoming car’. She told the Daily Mail: ‘I was very lucky to have the bag over my arm. As he pulled it, it took off my watch. By this time I was on the ground and grabbed it.’
The attacker jumped into a car which sped away too quickly for anyone to get the registration.
Miss Leeming, who took part in I’m A Celebrity... in 2006, tweeted that she was left ‘black and blue’ and fears the gash will scar.
She was tended to by a passerby, who had some antiseptic cream, before a pharmacist bandaged her arm. She said yesterday: ‘This will teach me to be even more wary and suspicious in future. I’m far too trusting.’
The attack was near the police station but it was closed at the time. She believes it unlikely her attacker will be caught. Miss Leeming, who has been married five times, was one of Britain’s best known newsreaders in the 1980s and hosted the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest.
She left the BBC months after the 1987 attack on her, admitting she had returned to work too quickly after the ordeal.
One of the youths jailed for five years for that incident was later given a life sentence for the 2003 murder of a man in Port Glasgow.