Nicholas Witchell is a journalist for the BBC. He has held the role as the BBC ’s royal and diplomatic correspondent for 24 years, having taken on the role in 1998.
Nicholas, 68, was born in Shropshire and was educated at Epsom College. He began his career as a BBC graduate news trainee in 1976 after studying law at Leeds University, where he edited the university newspaper.
His first role within the corporation was as a BBC reporter in Northern Ireland. There he covered the IRA hunger strikes and the assassination of Earl Mountbatten.
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From 1984 he launched BBC Television’s Six O’Clock News alongside presenter Sue Lawley. He made headlines in 1988, including a Daily Mirror headline that read "Beeb Man Sits on Lesbian", when he “sat” on a protestor who had burst into the Six O’Clock news studio demonstrating against Clause 28.
He joined BBC Breakfast News for five years from 1989 before becoming an international correspondent. During his time as a BBC diplomatic correspondent, between 1995 and 1998, Witchell reported from wars in Bosnia, Beirut, and Lebanon, among others.
He was the first journalist to confirm the death of Princess Diana on air in the early morning of August 31, 1997. He later covered her funeral at Westminster Abbey for the BBC.
The royal correspondent lives in London with his wife Maria Staples, a former army officer. He has two daughters from a previous relationship with jewellery designer Carolyn Stephenson, Arabella, 28, and Giselle, 24.
The royal correspondent hasn’t always been in favour with the royal family. In 2005 on a Swiss skiing trip in Klosters, a microphone caught the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, remarking about Witchell: “I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is."
Recounting the incident in 2014, Witchell said: "There has never been an apology, and why should there be? He was probably quite right. You know, awful man.
"You could take the view it was the best thing that happened to me, because it showed that it is our job as BBC journalists to report fairly and accurately, but not to seek approval. We're not there to be liked."
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