New Year Honours 2023: Anne Diamond honoured for cot death campaign

Anne Diamond said the OBE was the "crowning achievement" for all those involved in the cot death campaign

Journalist Anne Diamond has been made an OBE in the New Year Honours for her campaign to prevent cot death following the death of her son.

The broadcaster, who spent time at Radio Oxford and BBC Berkshire, said it was the "crowning achievement" for all those who helped her.

The presenter lost her son Sebastian in 1990 to sudden infant death syndrome, commonly called cot death.

She said the campaign was testament the media "can be a force for good."

The 68-year-old, who became a fixture of daytime TV during the 1980s and 1990s, presented BBC One's Good Morning With Anne And Nick, TV-am's Good Morning Britain and TV Weekly.

She joined forces with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) and the Department of Health, to launch the successful Back to Sleep campaign after she and her then husband Mike Hollingsworth lost their son.

Anne Diamond's older children cradle baby Sebastian before his death in 1990

The national media campaign which started in 1991 warned parents that babies should sleep on their backs not their fronts, and has been credited with a reduction in cot deaths.

She said: "This OBE is literally a crowning achievement to everyone who helped me and upon whose ground-breaking research my campaign was based.

"This is also testament that the media can be a force for good. By the government's own report, 80% of parents who got the life-saving advice got it from the TV ads.

"But mostly this is for Sebastian, whom we still miss, and all of those tragically lost lives."

Anne Diamond said her OBE was a tribute to her son Sebastian "whom we still miss"

Diamond, who was also awarded a college medal by the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health for her work on the campaign, has worked with many other charities over the years.