Nicholas David Ross[1]CBE (born 7 August 1947) is a British radio and television presenter. During the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the most ubiquitous of British broadcasters but is best known for hosting the BBC Television programme Crimewatch,[2] which he left in 2007 after 23 years.[3] He has subsequently filmed a series for BBC One called The Truth About Crime and has made documentaries for BBC Radio 4. He is chairman, president, trustee or patron of a number of charities including the National Fire Chiefs Council, and is President of the British Security Industries Association.
He was brought up in Surrey.[4] His German Jewish father, Hans Rosenbluth, fled Germany in 1933 soon after the Nazis came to power. In 1940 Rosenbluth was interned as an ‘enemy alien‘ and sent from England to Australia on HMT Dunera. When allowed to return, Rosenbluth changed his name to John Caryl Ross and joined the British Army’s Pioneer Corps; he became an officer in 1945.[5] His paternal grandfather was Pinchas Rosen (born Felix Rosenblüth), who served three times as justice minister of Israel.
He began working part-time for the BBC in Northern Ireland while still a student and reported on the violence as the Troubles became acute. He returned to London and presented British radio programmes such as Radio 4's The World at One, PM and The World Tonight, and moved to TV in 1979 as a reporter for Man Alive on BBC Two. He made several documentaries in a brief stint as a director and producer. "The Biggest Epidemic of Our Times" was a polemic on road accidents which was made for Man Alive but transferred to BBC1. It was later described as a broadcast that "would transform road safety,"[6] and according to another commentator, by reframing the whole concept of road safety Ross's campaigning changed public attitudes and public policy to such an extent that, "in significant consequence British mortality rates of people under 50 are among the lowest in the world."[7] Ross also produced and directed two programmes on drug addiction, The Fix and The Cure, which followed an addict called Gina. He presented a law series Out of Court in this period as well as large-scale studio debates.
He was on the presenting team of a short-lived early-evening news programme Sixty Minutes which began in 1983, and was intended as a replacement for Nationwide, but proved an unwieldy format. In the same period he was a founder presenter of the BBC's Breakfast Time on BBC 1, the first regular such programme in this timeslot, from its launch in early 1983, with Frank Bough and Selina Scott, as well as launching Watchdog as a prime time stand-alone consumer series.
Ross in the BBC Crimewatch studio
Crimewatch (based on a German prototype) began in 1984, and made him a household name in the UK and his regular sign-off, "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well", became a well-known catch-phrase. In 1989 he was asked to present BBC Radio 4's Tuesday morning phone-in, the name of which was changed from Tuesday Call to Call Nick Ross. He resigned in 1997, but received an award as best radio presenter of the year. During the 1991 Gulf War he was a volunteer presenter on the BBC Radio 4 News FM service.[8]
He presented A Week in Politics on Channel 4, then moved to cover BBC Two's live broadcasts of parliament in Westminster with Nick Ross. At one stage in the 1990s he was often doing three mainstream live programmes a day such as Call Nick Ross, Westminster with Nick Ross and Crimewatch. He was used in a variety of BBC formats including chat shows, travel programmes and debates, but was most at home in live studios, often orchestrating debates.
In 2000 Ross presented a general knowledge quiz called The Syndicate, aired on BBC 1 which pitted two teams across three rounds on general knowledge.[9]
In late 2007, Ross left Crimewatch, soon followed by his co-presenter Fiona Bruce. The replacement presenter, Kirsty Young, was 21 years younger than Ross and the BBC were accused of ageism over these changes.[10] His 23 years as the main Crimewatch anchor marks him as one of the longest-serving presenters of a continuous series in TV history.
He spent a year creating a major BBC One series The Truth About Crime,[11] which aired in mid-2009 and explained the fall in crime rates and how offending can be reduced further. The show was described by The Times as an "outstanding... sane, insightful and compellingly argued documentary series."[12]
He has since been making other TV shows, such as Secrets of the Crime Museum and science programmes for BBC Radio 4 including an acclaimed re-examination of the Chernobyl disaster Fallout: the Legacy of Chernobyl.[13] His written journalism has included a re-examination of the Air France Flight 447 air crash that provoked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.[14][15]
Away from broadcasting Ross has a wide range of philanthropic involvements, centred on medical ethics as well as promoting science and evidence-led health-care. He has also played a leading role in social action campaigns, most notably crime prevention, road safety and fire safety.[17]
Ross coined the term Crime Science to promote a practical, multidisciplinary and outcome-focused approach to crime reduction (as distinct from what he claimed was often theory-driven criminology). The Jill Dando Institute which he inspired has grown to have a substantial role in University College London, spawning a new Department of Security and Crime Science[18] and other offshoots including a Forensic Science unit and a secure data lab. Ross is chairman of the board of the institute, a visiting professor, and an Honorary Fellow of University College London, as well as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminologists. His crime science concept has since been adopted in universities elsewhere, including New York, Cincinnati and Texas, with formal crime science courses at Loughborough in the UK and at Twente University in the Netherlands. The British Ministry of Defence DSTL has a fast-growing crime science unit and there have been plans to create a crime science department at the University of Manchester.
Ross has written several books including Crime, how to solve it and why so much of what we're told is wrong,[19] and is President of the British Security Industries Association.
He has served on several government committees (including the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy, the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee, the NHS National Plan Task Force, the National Crime Prevention Board and the Crime Prevention Agency Board). He was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1999–2005 and a member of the council's Working Party on Ethics of research involving animals[20] (2003–2005).
Ross contributed the foreword to Edzard Ernst's 2013 book on complementary and alternative medicine, Healing, Hype or Harm?: A Critical Analysis of Complementary or Alternative Medicine.[21] Ross described himself as a 'sceptic' but 'not a cynic' and that 'pseudomedicine should be exposed for what it is'.[21] Ross campaigned against Lord Maurice Saatchi's Medical Innovation Bill.[22] Ross spoke against the bill in a 2015 debate hosted by HealthWatch, saying that "Uncoordinated trial and error on individual patients will never cure cancer and even if it did we would never know because these aren't controlled conditions...There is a long roll call of dishonour where lack of systematic science did harm".[23]
Ross is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and of the Royal College of Surgeons, a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a non-executive director of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He has been a member of the Committee on Public Understanding of Science, chairman of the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books (twice), Guest Director of the Cheltenham Science Festival, chairman of the National Road Safety Committee of RoSPA and President of the London Road Safety Council, and an affiliate of the James Lind Alliance. He is Chairman of the Wales Cancer Bank Advisory Board,[24] a member of the ethics committee of UK Biobank, president of several charities including HealthSense[25] (formerly HealthWatch), and a Trustee of Crimestoppers and of the UK Stem Cell Foundation.[26] He served on the board of Sense about Science from 2008 to 2023, was an adviser to Crime Concern and Victim Support, and served two terms as an Ambassador for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 2004–11.
He has campaigned for sprinklers in social housing, chaired fire sector summits, lobbied ministers and was a critic of 'complacency' that led to mass fatalities in the Lakanal House and Grenfell Tower fires in London.[28] In 2023 he was appointed chair of trustees of the National Fire Chiefs Council.[29]
In 2003 he was tipped by The Sun newspaper as a candidate for Mayor of London, and his name was mentioned again for the 2008 election.[30] Although he did not stand,[31] he wrote a manifesto for London's evening paper[32] and chaired one of the key public debates. In 2011 he was mentioned as a possible police and crime commissioner.[33]
In 2012 it was reported that he had sold his home in Notting Hill, West London "for almost 40 times the price he paid for it" in 1993.[34] The buyer of the house was Khalid Saïd, son of businessman Wafic Saïd.[35]
Ross works as a chairman and moderator for corporate and government meetings. His wife Sarah Caplin, co-founder of ChildLine, was Deputy Secretary of the BBC and also a senior executive with ITV, the British commercial television broadcaster. The couple have three sons: Adam, Sam and Jack.
Crime: How To Solve It, and Why So Much of What We're Told Is Wrong (Biteback, 2013) ISBN9781849544993
By others
Edzard Ernst: Healing, Hype or Harm?: A Critical Analysis of Complementary or Alternative Medicine (foreword by Nick Ross, Societas, 2008) ISBN9781845401184
Jill Wendy Dando was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation's Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, her television work included co-presenting the BBC One programme Crimewatch with Nick Ross.
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston, is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and Labour peer.
Fiona Elizabeth Bruce is a British journalist, newsreader, and television presenter. She joined the BBC as a researcher for Panorama in 1989, and became the first female newsreader on the BBC News at Ten, as well as presenting many flagship programmes for the corporation, including BBC News at Six, Crimewatch, Real Story, Antiques Roadshow, and Fake or Fortune? Since 10 January 2019, she has been the presenter of the BBC One television programme Question Time.
Kirsty Jackson Young is a Scottish television and radio presenter.
Anne Margaret Diamond is a British journalist, broadcaster, and children's health campaigner. She presently hosts the weekend breakfast show on GB News with Stephen Dixon as her co-presenter. She hosted Good Morning Britain for TV-am and Good Morning with Anne and Nick for BBC One, with Nick Owen. In 2023, she was made an OBE for her service to children's health and is the first non-medic to hold the Royal College of Paediatrics College Medal.
Paul Ross is an English television and radio presenter, journalist and media personality.
Nicholas Anthony Robinson is a British journalist, currently a presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Prior to this he spent ten years as political editor for BBC News and has had many other roles with the broadcaster.
Crime science is the study of crime in order to find ways to prevent it. It is distinguished from criminology in that it is focused on how crime is committed and how to reduce it, rather than on who committed it. It is multidisciplinary, notably recruiting scientific methodology rather than relying on social theory.
Sue Cook is a British television presenter and author. With Nick Ross, she co-presented the BBC One factual crime show Crimewatch from 1984 until 1995.
David Greenhalgh Jessel is a British former TV and radio news presenter, author, and campaigner against miscarriages of justice. From 2000 to 2010, he was also a commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
The UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science is an institute of crime science located in London, United Kingdom, and a part of University College London (UCL). It was founded in 2001, becoming the first university institute in the world devoted specifically to crime science. The institute's current director is Richard Wortley.
William Hanrahan is a British television/radio producer and presenter best known for working on BBC programmes such as Watchdog and Good Morning. Since 1994 he has headed an independent TV company which currently produces studio programming and documentaries for the BBC and Sky TV, A&E, Foxtel, Netflix, CBS, Discovery and UKTV. He is a three-times Royal Television Society Award winner and his programmes are currently airing in over 70 countries. He has executive produced for both the BBC and ITV working with Alistair McGowan on the BBC Restoration project, and Chris Tarrant on the BBC Four History of the World in 100 objects series. He is a law graduate with experience in consumer and legal programming. In 2013/14, Hanrahan also returned to radio presenting as a guest host on BBC Radio in 2014 and 2015. In 2017, his legal TV series 'The Jury Room' for CBS Reality also saw him present a six-part Podcast.
Rav Wilding is a British television presenter and former police officer who served with the British Transport Police and Metropolitan Police Service. Prior to joining the police, Wilding served in the British Army and worked as a security guard at Harrods department store in London. He is best known for his role as a presenter on the BBC TV show Crimewatch.
Crimewatch is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was originally broadcast once a month on BBC One, although in the final years before cancellation it was usually broadcast roughly once every two months.
Crimewatch Live is a British television programme produced by BBC Studios Documentary Unit Cymru Wales, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving them. The programme is broadcast on BBC One.
Alan John Farthing is an English obstetrician and gynaecologist who served as Surgeon-Gynaecologist to Queen Elizabeth II's Royal Household.
Crime Limited was a BBC television series that was a spin-off from the BBC's Crimewatch. The first series aired on BBC One over ten episodes in 1992 and was presented by Nick Ross and Sue Cook. A second series ran in 1993 and a third series ran in 1994.
Crimewatch File was a British television programme which reconstructed the investigation of a single case that had previously been covered by Crimewatch which viewers had previously helped to solve.
Crimewatch Solved was a BBC television series that was a spin-off from the BBC's Crimewatch. The first episode aired on BBC One in 1999 and was presented by Nick Ross. The final episode aired in September 2010 and was presented by Matthew Amroliwala.
Phil Gayle is an English newsreader, broadcaster and journalist who has worked for networks including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, broadcasting the news on both television and radio. As well as presenting on programmes including The Big Breakfast, Crimewatch Daily, London Today and London Tonight, Gayle has also competed on the second series of Dancing on Ice. Since 2015, he has been a presenter for DW News, an international English-language news channel which broadcasts from Germany. Gayle can also be heard as the voice of the in-flight announcements for easyJet.
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