Sally: My motherPage warned I’d be killed if I did Crimewatch
Scots star turned down murdered Dando’s job
SCOTS broadcaster Sally Magnusson turned down the chance to present Crimewatch after her mother warned her she would be ‘murdered’ like Jill Dando if she took the job.
Miss Magnusson, 62, says BBC chiefs approached her to take over the role following the host’s killing.
Her friend, Miss Dando, was shot dead aged 37 outside her home in Fulham, west London in 1999 and the killer has never been traced.
Reporting Scotland anchor Miss Magnusson said she had doubts about accepting the job and told how her mother Mamie had fears for her safety.
She says her hesitancy led to the role being filled by fellow Scot Kirsty Young and told how the decision not to take the job is one of her biggest regrets.
Miss Magnusson said: ‘I suddenly got a call from the BBC saying we’re looking for a new presenter for Crimewatch and we’d like to offer it to you because we need somebody who can ask sharp questions but with humanity or something like that.
‘And I don’t know if it was because it was so, so raw to me. I remember talking to my mother about it, who was probably already suffering from dementia at that time, and she said, “You can’t do that, you’ll be murdered too”.
‘It’s silly when you think back but nobody knew what had happened to Jill and why, and I kind of ummed and aahed and while I was umming an aahing they decided they wanted somebody else – I think that’s when Kirsty Young got it.’
She added: ‘Regrets in life are almost always about what you didn’t do.’
Barry George, also of Fulham, was initially convicted in July 2001 of Miss Dando’s murder but was acquitted at a retrial in August 2008.
Theories surrounding the murder include an IRA attack, a hit by a London underworld gang after the victim reported on them for Crimewatch, and a revenge killing by Serbian warlords after she fronted an appeal for Kosovan refugees.
There were also suggestions that she was investigating rumours of a VIP paedophile before her murder.
Miss Magnusson wrote a moving memoir about her mother’s battle with dementia called Where Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything and says her career high was seeing the book in the bestseller list.
She added: ‘What began to happen as the book got read is that doctors and nurses and care professionals said, “I never knew that’s what it was like for a family, this is going to alter the way I do my job”.’ Miss Magnusson has recently launched her first novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift, based on the true story of 400 Icelanders who were abducted by Barbary pirates in the 17th century and taken to Africa to live as slaves.
The mother of five worked in newspapers before moving into broadcasting, appearing on the BBC’s Breakfast Time show throughout the 1980s.
Her father was the broadcaster and author Magnus Magnusson, who was best known for presenting Mastermind, while her mother, Mamie, was a newspaper journalist.
Mr Magnusson died in 2007, aged 77, after a battle with pancreatic cancer, while Mamie died in 2012, aged 86.
‘Looking for a new presenter’