ITV News legend leaves channel and shares sad statement

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Lucy Meacock has bid a poignant farewell to ITV after an impressive 36 years gracing our television screens, in a week shadowed by the harrowing Southport stabbings that saw the tragic loss of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga event.The veteran presenter, aged 64, had her departure from the broadcaster signalled last month and took to Twitter this Wednesday to announce she would be stepping down amid what she described as "the saddest of weeks" reflecting on the stabbing incident which claimed the lives of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7.Following the brutal attack, a 17-year-old boy was charged with their murders.

The court lifted the anonymity typically granted to minors in such cases this past Thursday.Expressing her sentiment during these sombre times, she tweeted: "I will bow out quietly - it's been the saddest of weeks.

Like everyone else my thoughts are only with those little girls who lost their lives in Southport. I have met some of the loveliest people this week and over my 36 years.

It has been a privilege. Thank you." Having become one of ITV's leading ladies anchoring the regional news show Granada Reports starting in 1988, Lucy commemorated her 35th anniversary on the show in November the previous year, reports the Mirror.