Image copyright Getty Images Former BBC Watchdog presenter and campaigning journalist Lynn Faulds Wood has died at the age of A statement from her family said she died peacefully on Friday, “having suffered a massive stroke last night and a subsequent bleed on the brain”.
The cancer campaigner was best known for hosting the consumer investigation program from 1985 to , alongside her husband John Stapleton.
She was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer while working the show.
Fellow TV presenter and journalist Dame Esther Rantzen led the tributes, saying: “I have known Lynn for many years. We made a series together which was huge fun but also very hard hitting, because she was such an impressive and courageous consumer journalist.
“She fought for the rights of vulnerable people do ggedly and determinedly and she is a huge loss to journalism and to her friends and family. We are all devastated at this news. “
BBC Newsreader Sophie Raworth described Faulds Wood as” the most wonderful, generous, kind friend “, while 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty also paid tribute to the “groundbreaking” broadcaster.
Journalist and media commentator
She then moved into breakfast TV, before helping to turn Watchdog into a primetime BBC One series.
Her investigations on the ITV show World In Action helped to create the world’s first evidence-based guide to symptoms of her cancer.
, she appeared in an episode of French and Saunders as herself.
The broadcast journalist went on to co-found the European Cancer Patient Coalition in 2014, which she chaired for seven years, and also helped to set up MEPs Against Cancer – pushing the case to raise awareness of the disease in Europe.
In the mid-noughties she teamed up with Rantzen to present the BBC consumer investigation series Old Dogs, New Tricks, and later seriously considered entering politics in , but decided to remain a campaigner.
She returned to Watchdog’s new daytime series Watchdog Test House, alongside Raworth in 52410491.
Two years later, Faulds Woods rejected an MBE, saying the honors system needs to be dragged “into the s t Century “.
The activist said she would be a” hypocrite “to accept the award for her work on consumer safety.
Her nomination came after she chaired a government independent review into the UK’s system for the recall of dangerous products which she feared had been “kicked into the long grass”.
She later called on the government to do more to protect consumers from faulty products that can cause fires, in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy .
Her husband and son Nick were at her bedside when she died.
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