Anne Atkins

Anne Atkins is a Christian author, broadcaster and vicar’s wife. She is a regular contributor to the radio feature "Thought for the Day" on the BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme. In 2005 she left London for Oxford, where her husband Shaun had been appointed as director of Christian education at St Andrew’s church, Linton Road.

She was heckled by protesters on BBC 2's programme "Newsnight" when she tried to defend the Oxford Union's debate between two extreme right-wing figures, David Irving and Nick Griffin.

In 1998 the Press Complaints Commission ruled that an article written by her in The Sun objecting to Government proposals to make the age of consent for homosexuals equal to that for heterosexuals broke the industry's Code of Conduct. In the article she stated that it was a fact that the average life expectancy of a gay person without HIV was 47 years. She also stated that it was a fact that a homosexual is 17 times more likely to be a paedophile than is a heterosexual. The PCC ruled that these were not proven facts and that she had been misleading the readers. The Sun apologised and Mrs Atkins stated that she would not comment on gay issues in future, a promise she has subsequently broken.