BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner is well known for his extensive reports on security and terrorism from all parts of the Middle East. He is fluent in Arabic, a factor in him becoming the BBC’s first full-time Gulf Correspondent, which subsequently led to his present position. Frank was shot six times by Al-Qaeda terrorists while filming in Saudi Arabia in 2004. His cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed and Frank was left paraplegic from gunshot wounds to the lower spine. After 12 surgical operations he has returned to his full-time job at the BBC and although based in a wheelchair he has reported from Jerusalem on the Lebanon war of 2006 and resumed skiing and scuba diving without the use of his legs.
As an expert on the Middle East he is a highly respected journalist and was voted Person of the Year by the UK Press Review and awarded OBE by HM the Queen in 2005.
“Its always hard to know which charities to support when there are so many deserving causes out there, but David and Daniel Nicholls’s story struck a chord with me. Having spent many months in a spinal injuries unit myself I know only too well how incredibly important it is to give people hope that one day there will be a chance that medical science can reverse the catastrophic blow to a person that comes from spinal cord injury.”
