BEV Turner, the former wife of GB rower James Cracknell, who suffered life-changing injuries when filming for The Discovery Channel, said the Flintoff family deserve ‘every penny’ of the reported £11 million compensation package.
Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, GB News presenter Turner said:
‘I know it might sound excessive, but Flintoff and his family deserve every penny of that £11m, as reported in The Sun.
‘Life-changing injuries (both visible & invisible) have both huge short and long-term impacts on earnings for ex/current sportsmen.
‘My then husband James Cracknell was injured in 2010 whilst filming a TV series for The Discovery Channel. Thus ensued 4 years of litigation stress that nobody knew about.
‘I had a 5 year old, a 13 month old and discovered I was pregnant whilst he was in a coma.
‘The expenses for us were huge. The loss of earnings (for both of us) were huge.
‘The long term mental and physical health effects were huge.
‘Arguably they are still felt by our children as we divorced. I’ve thought of Rachel Flintoff and the kids a lot over the last year.
‘So don’t be so quick to judge either the BBC, Top Gear or Freddie. I’m just glad they reached a resolution relatively quickly so that they can start to heal together.’
Turner’s ex husband, former rower James Cracknell, suffered near-fatal head injuries whilst he was attempting to cycle, row, run and swim from Los Angeles to New York in 2010. The incident caused him to suffer a contrecoup injury to the frontal lobes of his brain, leaving him with epilepsy and a changed personality.
Flintoff, 45, was involved in a serious accident when filming for BBC’s Top Gear on 13th December 2022, requiring him to be airlifted to hospital.
