Presenter Eddie Mair reveals he was attacked in London

'I told no one, least of all the police. Not my family or friends. Not work colleagues. I felt shame,' says BBC Radio 4 presenter

Mair says the only time he had been a victim of crime in the past was when he missed out on a radio award (Getty Images)

BBC Radio 4 presenter Eddie Mair has revealed he was assaulted while getting on a bus in London last year but felt too ashamed to report it to the police.

The 52-year-old broadcaster, who hosts BBC Radio 4's daily news magazine PM, said he was circled by three young people riding bikes last December while walking to a bus stop after dinner with friends.

Mair said he had decided to speak out in the wake of the recent attack of comedian Michael McIntyre who was robbed by two hammer-wielding thieves on a moped while he waited to pick his children up from school.

Writing in The Sunday Times today, Mair said he "felt like prey" as one wheeled their front wheel close to his face.

He said he tried to film the attackers on his mobile phone while he waited for his bus to arrive but was not able to capture their faces because they were wearing hoodies. He was subject to several blows to the head as he paid the driver.

“I told no one, least of all the police. Not my family or friends. Not work colleagues,” Mair wrote. “I felt shame. I felt I may have been in some way responsible for what happened. Did I goad the little bastards with my video recording?”

He said his head was in pain for days and a large bruise materialised. He eventually wound up reporting the assault to police in February but his video footage did not manage to successfully identify his attackers and CCTV footage from the scene had been deleted because of him reporting it late.

The Scottish presenter said the only time he had been a victim of crime in the past was when he missed out on a radio award.

“If you’d asked me six months ago whether I had personally suffered a crime, I would have said no,” he wrote. “Well, I was robbed of a Sony radio award once, but you have to accept the judges’ decision. Apart from that, I considered myself fortunate to reach 52 without becoming part of the statistics. Then, in the space of a month, I was attacked twice.”

​A woman on the bus urged him to report the crime to prevent similar assaults but Mair said he refrained from doing so.

"For weeks, every time the local paper reported an assault, I believed that I had contributed to it. More shame," he said.

The presenter eventually reported the assault before leaving for a visit to South America.

Mair urged victims to come forward and report crimes.