BBC’s Aggers ‘chose not to see daughters’

The family of BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew today said that it was his “own fault” that he doesn’t have a better relationship with the two daughters from his first marriage.

The 52-year-old presenter of Test Match Special told BBC Desert Island Discs yesterday of the “tough time” he had maintaining contact with Jennifer, 27, and Rebecca, 24, after his divorce from their mother Beverley in 1993.

Mr Agnew, 52, known as “Aggers”, admitted it was “the one sad area of my life”, saying that he wanted to “stand up” for absent fathers in broken families.

But Mrs Agnew, 56, said he was to blame for the problems: “He has had the opportunity to see and be with his children any time he chooses. He’s been in control of that. So, if he hasn’t taken part in their lives that’s been his choice.”

Agnew married BBC producer Emma Dodds in 1996, becoming stepfather to her two children.