BOLTON broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire landed the accolade for best news coverage at this year’s BAFTA Television Awards.

The Turton-raised TV presenter and journalist received the award for her show’s coverage of former footballers who allegedly suffered sexual abuse as children.

The way the show handled the issue saw off competition from Channel 4 News’ coverage of Brexit, BBC North West Tonight reporting on the Hillsborough Inquest and Sky News Tonight’s Aleppo: Death of a City.

Accepting the award at the ceremony on Sunday night, the 48-year-old praised the bravery of the four ex-players for telling their story.

Ms Derbyshire was presented with the prestigious gong at a star-studded ceremony held at The Royal Festival Hall, in London, together with programme editor Louisa Compton and journalist Jo Adnitt.

She said: “This was an interview I did with four men, former footballers, who trusted us enough to talk to our audience about the alleged abuse they experienced as boys, as nine-year-olds, as ten-year-olds, going off to football training.

“You can’t underestimate the courage it took for them to do that on national television, live.

“As a result of what they did hundreds of other potential victims came forward to the police , tonight I would like to thank BAFTA, our amazing editor and team, but most of all I would like to thank Andy Woodward, Chris Unsworth, Steve Walters and Jason Dunford.”

And later Ms Derbyshire took to Twitter to say she and her team were ‘privileged that four ex-footballers trusted us with what they had to say’.

She also Tweeted : “Oh my god we won a #BAFTA. Wow. Wow. Thank you thank you to Andy, Chris, Steve, Jason #VictoriaLIVE.”

Farnworth actress Diane Morgan was also among the nominees for her comic creation Philomena Cunk.

The character began life on Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe before starring in a spin-off series, which included Cunk on Shakespeare and Cunk on Christmas.

Cunk on Shakespeare was up for best female performance in a comedy programme as well as best comedy and comedy entertainment programme.

And although the show didn’t land either gong, Ms Morgan was still a winner in the latter category as her character featured in Charlie Brooker’s 2016 Wipe.